


nympheas

by cardangreenbriar



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anxiety, Domesticity, Drug Use, Fluffy, Hurt/Comfort, Jealous Steve, Jealousy, Letter fic, M/M, Period Typical Homophobia, Pining, Shared Trauma, Shotgunning, being queer in the 80s, billy lives, boys being really really reallly really really really stupid, figuring out how to have a healthy relationship despite trauma, homophobic slur, its a letter fic in part but a majority will actually be regular prose, i’m changing the tag this is definitely slow burn, kind of a fix it, mental illness luv, narrator is self deprecating / ableist language, not like... guns.... like the weed kind, ok, oop - the rating changed 🤭, ost: something holy by alice phoebe lou, slow burn? kinda? haha, these boys are angry and self-destructive, touch starved, with humor too though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:09:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 33,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23067520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardangreenbriar/pseuds/cardangreenbriar
Summary: Steve Harrington,I don’t write letters, so sorry if this reads like an idiot wrote it. I have a few things I want to say and you don’t have to write back.Sorry I beat the snot out of you and sorry about the plate business, too. Thanks for taking care of Max when I was down and out. I still don’t really understand what the fuck happened, but you really had it together, from what I hear. Anyway, thanks.Billy
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 69
Kudos: 136





	1. swamp horses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FlashMountain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlashMountain/gifts).



> this is plenty inspired by thefudge and a really amazing billy/el letter fic that they wrote
> 
> gifting to FlashMountain because of their amazing support throughout my experience writing this. their comments got me through a ton of second guessing and writer’s block BS. thank you 🥺💓

_“i drank a lot. i lost my job.  
i lived like nothing mattered.  
then you stopped, and came across  
my little bridge of fallen answers.“  
-leonard cohen_

***

Steve Harrington,

I don’t write letters, so sorry if this reads like an idiot wrote it. I have a few things I want to say and you don’t have to write back. 

Sorry I beat the snot out of you and sorry about the plate business, too. Thanks for taking care of Max when I was down and out. I still don’t really understand what the fuck happened, but you really had it together, from what I hear. Anyway, thanks. 

Billy

***

Billy,

I don’t write letters either. Is this address okay for you? Why Oregon?

I didn’t have it together at all, to be honest. I can tell that Max learned how to drive from you. What do you remember about what happened? We don’t have to talk about it, but I always wonder. I never know how to fill the page up. Feels like a waste of 15 cents to write like six sentences and mail it off.

Steve

P.S. Sorry about the stationary.

***

Steve,

Harrington, what on God’s green Earth is this flowery bullshit love letter paper you wrote me on? Yeah, this address is okay. I’m staying with my Aunt— Mom’s sister. When did Max drive? So you’re saying she’s an excellent driver like me. 

Straight into the heavy questions. I don’t know. I have dreams sometimes but don’t know what’s for real, what’s not. I remember I was going to bag Mrs. Wheeler and then I woke up in the hospital, that’s for sure. Oh boy, Harrington is short 15 cents, what ever will he do.

Billy

***

Billy,

Mrs. Wheeler? You shouldn’t have told me that. I’ll never be able to look Nancy in the eyes again.

I know you love this stationary. My mom went all hysterical on some mail-order catalogue with overpriced paper and envelopes, we have a stack of the shit tall as I am. She doesn’t even write letters. I’ll be sure to pick the ones with flames and big tits on the border next time. More your speed?

I can tell you about it, but I don’t blame you if you don’t want to know. I got dragged into it and thought I had it bad, but I can safely say your introduction was much worse.

Steve

***

Steve,

You’re still hanging around the Wheeler girl? Are those two olives you drew meant to be tits? Jesus, you’ve really never seen any. Better than daisies and horses running on a field. I have to take ten to laugh before I can sit down and write you back. My Aunt thinks a girl is writing me.

I don’t know if I want to know either. How is the girl, Max’s friend? I ought to write her but I don’t know where to get her address. 

How did you get into it? The monster shit.

Billy

***

Billy,

I showed up at the Byers’ house one night and one of those things was just climbing out of the wall. I kind of repressed it. A lot of terrible shit has happened. It’s funny but it’s not. Dustin needed my help once and I got dragged into it again. Then all this bullshit was happening under the mall.

That paper on my last letter was horses and waterlillies, by the way, not daisies. Swamp horses if you will. Daisies don’t grow on lily pads???

Everyone was scared when you were in a coma, since Starcourt ended so badly. I knew you would be okay because Will made it through and he is about as tough as a wet rag. Don’t take that as a compliment because I will call the cops if you do.

This is too serious so I’m going to lighten the mood and complain about the fact that my mom has been watching the same Cheers reruns really loud on the TV for like a week.

Steve

P.S. here is El’s address. You can call her Jane too. She is cool with both.

***

Steve,

Okay, I’m missing the gaudy paper. Whatever, waterlillies. Your mom sounds like a doll. Ted Danson is so fine.

I don’t really know what to say. I’ve been sitting here with the pen for a while. I chew on the end of it so I can’t even click it shut. My last pen started leaking ink out all over the last letter, and thank God cause it was getting pathetic.

Talk to me about happier stuff. What’s Max doing that she won’t tell me on the phone? Will you beat the shit out of Sinclair if he fucks with her? What are you doing with your life Hair?

And... Call the cops on me baby because I’m totally taking that as a compliment

Billy

***

Billy,

First of all, you pulled the equivalent of starting a sentence then saying “nevermind” but in letter format. I don’t even know how but you did and I’m mad about it. What did the letter say?!? I’m all about pathetic. 

It’s scary because now that Hop is gone and the Byers left I’m the oldest fuck around who knows about all of this. I feel like all the responsibility is on my shoulders. I had to start seeing a shrink because I can’t handle some of the things the kids say, then I stopped going because I can’t tell him about the flesh-eating dogs and poltergeists from hell. There wasn’t a good enough metaphor that could describe the trauma, ha ha. How is that for pathetic?

Max and Lucas break up like every week, and I won’t have to beat the shit out of him because Max would have it taken care of before I could even show up.

Thanks for calling me Hair. I’m thinking about cutting it off, but you just extended the warrantee a little longer. I quit the ice cream place because it fucked with my dating game. Now I just sit at home, which does wonders for dating, seriously. I’m living it up. What made you go to your Aunts?

Steve

***

Steve,

I don’t remember what I wrote in the first letter anymore. I just know it was whiney and I spared you by throwing it out.

I’m sorry about the shrink. You could send me what you need to say but I can’t promise I’ll have a good response.

I haven’t thought about the fact that you’re the oldest. Max says you take really good care of them, which is what made me want to write in the first place. I’m not jealous, but it’s kind of like that. I feel like I should be doing that for them. But I couldn’t anyway so whatever. 

Why do they break up? Max hasn’t told me that. Probably thinks I’ll book a flight back to Hawkins just to yoke him up. I would. 

If you cut up your hair you can lose my address, seriously. But send me a commemorative photo before. I will write an obituary for your hair in the papers.

Billy

***

Billy,

I’ll spare you my bullshit then too. You might puke all over my letter if I sent you the half of it. A quarter. A sixteenth.

It’s nice that Max says that about me, thanks for telling me. Why did you say you couldn’t you be there for the kids? If you told me I would play babysitter for a bunch of dumb teenagers two years ago I definitely would have A. laughed or B. thrown myself off a bridge. I used to be cool. Remember? I was cool once.

I don’t know why they break up. Dustin said something about communication skills. Just teenager crap. She takes him around the bend and back to be honest. She told me that you asked her about it though, and that you said we were writing, and now she keeps calling me ‘Penpal’. It’s great. I’m so happy. I know you can’t see my face, but I’m not actually smiling because I’m being sarcastic.

You didn’t answer me about your Aunt’s either. Why did you skip town?

Steve

Oh, and thanks about my hair. It will live another day. Here’s a polaroid anyway.

***

Steve,

You’re worse than a girl. I went to my Aunt’s because I can’t stand Neil anymore. 

You were never cool, Harrington. I really like the jacket you have on though. Keep the hair. 

If it’s Max giving Lucas a run for his money and not the other way round then I’m happy. I’m saying I couldn’t hang around the kids because they would probably be terrified. It’s still hard to look in the mirror sometimes, which is a lot from me. 

You keep calling them teenagers as if you aren’t 19. When is your birthday? You act like you’re an old hag. Your baby cheeks say otherwise.

I had a bad dream last night and it blew. I remember being cut open by that thing. I have this big scar up my right side. How do you explain that to people you get in the sack with? I make up creative stories. Last one I said I drove my motorcycle into a lake. I don’t have a motorcycle. The polaroid I’m putting in is of me and my Aunt’s dog, Willy. He’s like a hundred years old but we still go down to the lake and play fetch and he plays like a puppy. I can’t believe I’ve never had a dog.

Billy

***

Billy,

You just missed my birthday. May 8th. I’m 20, and these baby cheeks are sallow and haggard. I got the hint that you really like my hair. I’m flattered.

I’ve never had a dog either. Willy is so cute. You really gave me flack about my hair when you went and cut yours short? It looks good, I’m not saying it doesn’t, but damn, you look older or something. Max can’t believe that you kind of smiled for a photo. She cried when she saw it. Don’t tell her I told you. But you should come visit, because she’s getting to miss you a lot. 

I’m sorry about your dream. I have them all the time. My parents are like never fucking home, so I’m always calling Nancy and Jonathan to sleep in the guest bedroom. Time heals all wounds, they say. I’m starting to feel a little safer but it’s hard.

Steve

***

Steve,

Sorry it took me a while to get back. I was moving. Did you get my postcard? I’m in Los Angeles finally. We never lived this far south. I’m a 10 in Indiana but out here I’m a 8.5 on a good day. I’m self-conscious about my ears all the sudden, if you can believe it.

Stop using words like ‘sallow’ and ‘haggard’. I had to pull out the dictionary to make sure I’m spelling ‘conscious’ right. I don’t like being shown up.

I’m sorry I missed your birthday but it’s your fault for not telling me. I’m putting in a twenty so you can take a date to the movies. Or all the kids because I know that’s probably what you’ll do. Or buy something. I don’t care, just tell me what you do with it. Happy belated.

My birthday is December 20 which has always sucked because I got Christmas gifts combined. I never celebrated with Neil. That’s pathetic ha ha. I don’t usually care about birthdays anyway. Six months later and I’m still a little shocked that my Aunt made me a cake. She was sad that I left, which sucked. I got the itch and I was on the road in a week.

I cut my hair because it got all matted up when I was in the hospital and it looked like roadkill. I’m growing it out again. You guys are seeing things because I definitely wasn’t smiling in that photo. Willy was making me glow. I don’t know how to take it that Max misses me, but thanks anyway for telling me. I don’t really know what I did to deserve being missed. 

I just got here but soon as I’m dying for some cold, humid, cow patty aroma I will ride the breeze your way. Or if I just want to see all of Max’s friends shit their pants.

Billy

***

Billy

So you’re saying never? I held this paper out the window to try and attach some of the sweet manure smell in hopes that it will tempt you back. Don’t shit on my vocabulary, I read a lot. And yeah, I got your postcard. My dad goes to San Diego on business. He was probably around the same time as you.

Why Los Angeles? I bet it’s beautiful. I’ve only been to California once when I was nine. Palm trees are weird. I love the beach and the food is way better. You are still a 10 out there you bastard. I would believe the bit about your ears if you weren’t the most cocky person I’ve ever met.

I took everyone to see Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I had to go sit in the bathroom with my head between my knees because it was too loud at some points. I have no idea what that was about. But the movie was really good anyway. Go see it so we can pretend you were there. 

Thanks so much for footing the bill. No one does stuff like that. I almost sent it back but then I just figured I would wait to get you back even bigger. Sucks that your birthday is so far off. The kids aren’t scared of you by the way. I think they know you aren’t whatever you were then. Would you change your mind about visiting if I bought a plane ticket?

Steve

***

Steve

I just got a job at this shop down the street, and the boss is a real hard-ass. I probably shouldn’t take vacation so soon after being hired, if I can even get past his attitude. If I quit, I’ll take you up on it.

I picked Los Angeles just because the girls here are hot. And the weather is hot too so no one wears clothes, including me, which is good. Except for that guy who breakdances right under my window every day. I wish he would wear clothes. I tipped him once when I was wasted and now he always winks at me. I hate that he knows that I live here. Thanks for saying I’m a 10. I’m cutting that part out of your letter and framing it.

That thing that happened at the movies happens to me a lot. Can’t stand it when people rev engines around me or set off fireworks. I startle real bad and people notice. Fourth of July is coming up quick and I’m having the shakes about it. 

I watched Ferris Bueller. Jeanie is a real broad. Maybe I’ll tell my boss I’ve got Phony Fever so I can come to Hawkins.

Billy

***

Billy

Max is over the moon, seriously. I can’t believe Susan did it. I’m sure you already know by the time you’re getting this, but Neil skipped town and even left her with the house. I would have loved to been a fly on the wall when that happened. Max won’t tell you but you should know why. I don’t want to get in the middle but you aren’t here and you should have been, and at the very least you should know what happened. I guess she came home after curfew and he bruised her up, first time ever. Susan had him out by the weekend.

He was a real prick, but he was the last monster in Hawkins, so I think you can come back now. Maybe the girls aren’t as hot or whatever but you’ll survive. Send me a bank slip so I can wire you some money, if you decide you want to come. And I’ve got lots of room here and my parents won’t be back until late August, so you can shack up if you have to. Here’s the landline if you want to talk about dates.

Steve

***

“Hello?”

“Harrington.”

“Uh— oh, Billy, hi, what— what’s—“

“So you want to talk about dates? A little forward but…”

“What? I meant like,” Steve pulls away from the phone to laugh, “I meant dates for flights.” 

“I quit my job today. My boss tried to get me to clean the bathroom to prove a point so I walked out.”

“Jeez, well, good. I would probably do the same thing.”

“I’ll come whenever, but I’ve never bought a plane ticket or even flown before.”

“It’s not so bad. But if it scares you, you should probably drive. I don’t mean that in a harsh way, I’m just saying be careful. It’s easy to feel trapped and scared on a plane.”

Billy doesn’t answer that, and the line stays mute for a moment except for minor shuffling on both ends.

“It’s weird, Harrington. Takes a week on a good turnaround to hear back from you. I don’t know how to talk to you in normal time.”

Steve laughs again, “Yeah, and I’m a little put out anyway. It’s eleven o’clock at night here. Hold on, Nancy’s mad because the ringing woke her up— Yeah, Nance, sorry. Uhh, Billy. Yeah. Hargrove. Yeah. Shut up. Go to _bed_ , Nancy.”

“She still sleeping in the other room or did you charm her back into the sheets?”

“Jonathan is in there with her. Not my bed, the guest room. It’s a regular thing.” Steve pauses, covers his mouth over the phone with his hand and whispers, “Wouldn’t get back together with her anyway, Jesus.”

“Mrs. Wheeler is way more banging.”

Steve laughs _again_. One could call it giggling if one were being somewhat loose with the definition.

“So, yeah,” Billy pushes away his grin, “When is good for you? I want to surprise Max, so don’t tell her.”

“Oh, good idea. Whenever. Um, soon as you can? The weather is good here for about two weeks per year and we are hitting the peak of that period right now—”

“By the way, sorry I forgot about time zones. I don’t know why I didn’t think about it. Max yells at me all the time.”

“No worries, I was up anyway.”

“Good. Yeah, so I’m unemployed and I’m good for whenever. I know the tickets are pricier when you buy them last minute, so.”

“Don’t worry about the money.”

“Harrington. You are such a rich kid.”

“Let me be a lonely trust-fund baby in peace.”

“Lonely? Wheeler and the Byers kid aren’t keeping you company?”

“Nights are rough,” Steve says, like he’s admitting something. He clears his throat way too loud.

“That they are.”

“How’s Tuesday?”

“That’s in two days.”

“Yep.”

Billy rolls it around in his mouth for a minute, tests out the syllable with his tongue, then says, “Yeah. Yeah, sounds good.” The ceiling does not smile back at him, just stays there, flat and white and a little water-stained.

“Ok,” Steve says, and he’s smiling too, “I’ll call them in the morning and get you in one of those flights. Don’t complain if it’s a red-eye.”

“What’s a red-eye?”

“Oh, it’s a flight that’s really fuckin’ late at night.”

“If you get me a red-eye I’m going to strangle you when I get off the plane.”

“I’m gonna book you a red-eye, Billy.”

“I won’t come.”

“Yes you will.”

“Don’t book me a red-eye.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, Billy, okay.” Steve is fully, toothily smiling stupidly at the floor. He wipes it away with the back of his hand when he realizes.


	2. carrion bag

Steve is standing at the airport terminal. Some little kid is coughing all over everything without covering his mouth. Steve jumps a little every time the attendant comes over the loud speaker to announce departures. He’s been spinning his key ring around for so long that there is a red mark on his finger. His watch says five o’clock, which means Billy is a little overdue.

The woman with the kid asks a man in a suit, “Where are you flying in from?”

“Los Angeles,” he says as he passes. 

Steve tries to lean coolly against the wall, but he can hardly swallow his spit even though he’s got the constant urge to, and that just makes him more anxious. So he stiffens up straight again. What is Steve supposed to do when he walks up? Do they shake hands? Do they hug? God forbid. Steve ducks into a bathroom and splashes cold water on his face, but this was a bad idea. Now he knows just how red his cheeks are and that only makes it worse.

He takes his jacket off and drapes it over his shoulder. It’s eighty degrees outside and he wore a jacket. He fingers through a few pieces of his hair and has to look away from the mirror before he runs away to the car and locks himself in the trunk.

He returns to his spot against the wall and realizes he’s looking at the back of Billy’s head, who must have arrived while he was freaking out in the bathroom.

“Oh,” Steve says, taps him on the shoulder, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Billy turns around, teeth all white and skin stupidly tanned, “Thought you ditched.”

“Nope, sorry, no I was, uh,” Steve stops. _Yeah, you were in the bathroom, idiot. So says the big restroom sign above the door that you just walked out of._ “Did you get your bags?”

“Just brought this,” Billy lifts his shoulder and shows off a little carry-on.

“Cool. We can—“ he points his thumb behind, the vague direction of the parking lot.

“Yeah,” Billy says, and Steve hates the way he smiles, kind of like everything you’ve said is the dumbest thing that any human being has ever strung together with their mouth. Which is true, but he shouldn’t smile like that anyway.

“I told the kids I was running to the store. I didn’t know they would all show up after school, I would have given you more time to settle.”

“I was gonna stay at a motel anyway.”

“Right,” Steve nods. That’s totally okay, though it’s probably a waste of money. And he told Nancy and Jonathan to go home, but.

“Yeah, there’s that one off 90 that’s pretty dingy but no bed bugs or anything, fingers crossed.”

“Want me to drop you there?” Steve says, shoving the key in the door of his car.

“Nah, I’m not gonna make you run me back and forth.”

Billy throws his duffle in the back and climbs in the passenger seat like he’s some kind of action movie star, which is so _annoying_ , because with the aviators and the new haircut he looks like one. But one of the extra douchey ones, like Tom Cruise.

“Thanks for the ticket, Harrington,” Billy says, running his hand out the window like it’s riding a wave in the wind.

“Yeah, no problem. How’d you like flying?”

“I got a window seat,” Billy scrunches his nose. “To be honest, I took a valium and slept. I’m still a little out of it.”

“Healthy. Coping with drugs is good,” Steve jokes, but he knows it’s probably better in some fucked up way.

“I definitely cope with drugs just fine,” Billy grins ear to ear, blondeish hair waving around his head. They’ve got to yell over the sound of the highway driving.

It’s a little annoying to Steve that Billy _seems_ fine. He’s probably not fine, but he seems it, and he is the one in this car who got to leave Hawkins, which Steve reckons is a better recipe for recovery than staying exactly in the spot where your nightmares happened. ‘Right in your backyard’ is not a figure of speech to Steve. But Billy’s waving his calloused hand out the window and he keeps a subtle smile like he’s got a secret. He turns up the radio and thumbs out the beat on the door.

Max is sitting on the porch smoking when they pull up. Steve’s driveway is long, so she has time to punch her cigarette out and kick the bud into the bushes, but she doesn’t because Steve has caught her like ten times and only yells at her, which she doesn’t care about. Except for the one time he threw her pack in the pool. Now she keeps it right in her back pocket, and he’s not going to reach in there. Billy’s looking at her like he’s seen a ghost.

She must not be able to see in the windows, because she barely looks twice at the car.

Steve parks, but Billy sits there sort of stiff, staring off at the glove box.

“What’s up?” Steve says stupidly, but _what’s up_ is probably a lot more than Billy would be willing to explain.

“Just weird to be back here,” Billy says, his voice a bit broken. He wipes his eyes beneath his sunglasses. Steve can see from the side that his eyelashes are wet. “She’s really fucking tall,” Billy says, then, “You let her smoke?” He hits Steve with the back of his hand.

“Hey,” Steve holds his hands up, “I tell her every time. She’s your sister, through and through, I don’t care that you aren’t related.”

“I’m gonna kick her ass,” Billy says, hand ghosting over the door handle for a minute before he pulls it and steps out.

Max is standing in the screen door squinting at Steve’s car, probably wondering what he’s doing, and then she goes shocked, screams, smiles, and starts running. She’s weeping when he lands in his arms. It’s weird to see them next to each other; she must have grown so much if she is near eye level with him, but Steve hadn’t noticed. Billy hugs her like he doesn’t know what a hug is, but he doesn’t pull away. 

“What? What?” She peels back and looks at him, the launches forward again, “What? Why are you here? Oh my god.”

“Don’t fucking smoke,” he tells her, but there is no vitriol. He pulls her pack out of her back pocket and launches it into the woods.

“Okay,” she says, breathless, her eyes reddened and damp.

Steve heads into the house to give them a moment, and Dustin is making a slack-jawed, squinty face in the window.

“What’s _he_ doing here. You’re a betrayer,” he says.

“That’s not a word, Dustin.”

“Yes, it is, _Steve_. You bring the enemy into our front yard…”

“Who’s here?” Mike walks up to the window, his expression unreadable and Nancy-like when he realizes that it’s Billy who’s stepping on the porch.

Lucas stiffens up, wide-eyed.

“Don’t say shit like that around him,” Steve raises an eyebrow at Dustin, who really means well but is a moral absolutist, which doesn’t work in real life like it does in Dungeons & Dragons. Steve has told him so, and then Dustin spews some crap about good and evil and Steve turns around to talk to the wall. It’s a discussion they don’t have anymore. “It’s _my_ front yard anyway.”

“It’s your dad’s, actually,” Dustin squints, then looks back out the window with such a loathing that it looks like he might explode. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you have a big mouth,” Mike laughs.

“That’s too on the nose, even for you, Michael,” Dustin scoffs.

Mike is friendly, he even smiles at Billy and shakes his hand. Dustin just happens to fall back to the living room as they walk in and pouts while he flips through the channels. Lucas nods stiffly and sips on his canned Coke. Max sticks close to Billy’s side and keeps looking at him, her teenage angst melting away and replaced by little unbelieving glances. She also flinches when Billy talks with his hands, which hurts Steve a bit. He’s definitely never hit her, but he’s been a real dick. She smiles and nods and coos when he describes the beach. She tilts her head back and closes her eyes like a cat, like she can feel the sun when he describes it.

Steve’s brain does torturous, traitorous things like agonizing over the fact that, yes, it’s daytime and the house is full _now_ , but later it will be dark and cavernous and Steve will only be able to look down to see a human body. He shivers even though the sunlight in the window is warming on his back. He worries that he didn’t communicate just how fucked up he was in the letters and Billy is going to high tail it home when he catches a whiff of crazy.

Lucas slips out of the kitchen, and Billy and Max are contained in their own conversation, so Steve follows him. Dustin is eating popcorn and watching MTV. Steve blows a big ball of air that was bound up in his chest, sets his arms akimbo so he can aerate. It does very little, so he slips out on to the back patio and sets to the task of lighting the grill, which has a terrible connection with the propane tank and will probably light him on fire. That would be preferable to the anxiety he’s feeling right now, so who’d care.

Billy comes slinking around the back, stops when he sees Steve, realizes he’s been caught. He’s got one of Max’s cigarettes dangling from his lips. He still walks with a little swagger and Steve wonders if he’s an honest-to-god psychopath. How do you get possessed by a sewer demon, inadvertently kill a few people, and almost die yourself, then swagger around like that? Steve just took a bat to a few of the toothy shits and now he can’t flirt. He laughs at his grill and hopes, truly, that it explodes in his face.

“Don’t tell,” Billy says through his teeth, covering the end of the cigarette while he lights it.

“I’m gonna tell,” Steve smiles and hopes he can still convey a joke, perform simple social interaction. He’s not so sure anymore.

“I’ll kick your ass, Harrington,” Billy points at Steve, cigarette in hand, but he’s smiling too. “What are you grilling?”

“I got some burgers thawing,” Steve steps away from the grill, which lights just fine.

“Need help?”

“Uh, don’t worry about it. I’m hosting.”

“So I’ll just stand here, smoke the whole pack, and stare at you, then.”

Steve rubs the back of his neck, his cheeks burning. “They’re in the sink.”

Billy rubs out the cigarette with his foot and taps Steve’s arm before he steps into the sliding door. Steve sucks in air like he’s been underwater too long.


	3. piss beer

“Robin,” Steve whispers into the phone. “Emergency.”

She startles a little and the phone rustles around, “What kind?”

“Billy is here and I’m freaking out.”

Her voice goes flat, like she was expecting something worse, “Oh. Why are you freaking out? Did he do something fucked up?”

“No. No. Just, I don’t know how to socialize anymore, Jesus.” Steve is hiding up in his room, and Billy is down on the patio with the kids, flipping burgers. Steve could legitimately stay in here until they all give up on him and go home.

“You suck,” Robin says, “I’m gonna ask my mom if I can skip out on dinner. If not I’ll be over later anyway.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, I’ll see you in a while.”

He could have called Nancy, but she would come over and stand with her arms crossed the entire time. Jonathan would be even more insufferably awkward than Steve, so that’s out. Robin is crass but she is not afraid to embarrass herself, and hopefully that will be the shield that Steve needs right now. Plus, the kids like her best. He flattens out his t-shirt and fixes his hair in the mirror for too long. The cheese is melting over the patties by the time Steve comes back down. Dustin is arguing with Billy about what a commune is, as if Dustin has ever been within a fifteen mile radius of one.

“That’s where people do everything naked!” Dustin shouts, disproportionately angry. 

Billy shoves a plate with a bun at him and laughs, ” _No_ , actually. Some are like that, sure, but it’s not a requirement.”

“Yes it is! Steve!”

“Don’t involve me in this,” Steve gives Billy a look of quiet camaraderie, and Billy smirks back.

“How would you know, anyway? Did you go to California and become a hippie?”

Billy swings his hips around and pretends to smoke a joint, “Peace and love, Henderson.”

Dustin opens his mouth to protest, but Max says, “Dustin, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to actually drown myself in the pool.”

Steve doesn’t visibly flinch, but withholding it makes his chest clench up.

Robin is pushing through the screen then, giving Steve her trademark dirty look, only breaking to smile when she sees Max.

Billy looks between her and Steve a few times, then flashes her a big grin.

“We’ve met,” Robin holds her hand up and sinks down on one of the loungers.

Well Dustin _loves_ that, and holds his hand up at Billy in the same dismissive way.

No one else really misses a beat, but Billy falters, rolling out his shoulders and raising his eyebrows at the ground. Steve slinks forward, making sure to run into Robin’s dangling foot on his way by.

“Ouch,” she says, utterly unfazed.

“Robin,” Dustin says, “How would you define a commune?”

“A commune? A place where hippies hang out and grow vegetables and tandem breast feed other peoples’ kids.”

“Anything about nudity?”

“Uh… no, Dustin. What?”

“Ha!” Billy points at Dustin, who is tomato red.

Robin looks at Max and they share equally powerful eye rolls. Robin lays back and soaks up the last bits of the day’s sun, the summer freckled all over her body but especially on her nose. Mike and Lucas are rigging up some pool basketball that they yanked out of the shed, and Dustin takes off his shirt to reveal a rash guard.

“I’m allergic to the sun,” he tells Steve.

“I didn’t say anything,” Steve throws his hands up.

“What are your plans for the Fourth?” Max folds over on her arms and knees.

Robin leans up on her elbows. “We could go to the Mall,” she snorts. It’s a joke that got old months ago, but she still makes it and they still laugh. People cope however they can. “Steve?”

“When is it? Friday right? Um, I don’t know. Nothing.”

“Very fun, Steve.”

“How long are you staying?” Max looks at Billy.

“Don’t know yet, maybe a week.”

“Good,” she smiles, probably hoping he’d be here for at least the weekend. “Hey, you can stay with mom and I.”

“No,” Billy waves that away, “I already got a room at the motel,” he lies.

“Okay, well if you decide to stay longer.”

Robin pulls shitty piss beer out of the cooler that’s probably warm. It’s seven o’clock on a Tuesday, so Steve gives her a little eye for it. She tosses him a can and he barely catches it. “Come on, Steve, let’s fulfill our destiny of being alcoholics.”

Billy looks positively puzzled by Robin, but heads to the cooler without asking and grabs his own piss beer. He chugs it in full, little remnants of his leather jacket days peaking into Steve’s view. Then he pulls off his t-shirt, saunters over to pick up Max and shot-put throws her into the deep end, screaming, and he dives in after her. The sunset is making a pretty orange haze sink over everything. Steve cracks open his beer and knocks it back.


	4. white bread

Steve is a mature, responsible adult. Well, sometimes. Most of the time.

Right now, he’s not. Right now he is leaning over the bathroom sink, eyelids heavy, oddly sweaty and cold in conjunction. Robin broke out some liquor after the kids went home, and her and Billy took to challenging who holds their liquor better (it’s Billy, but don’t tell her that). Steve doesn’t drink as a rule, but now he’s looking in the mirror wondering how the hell he ended up drunk off of five watered-down, warm beers and a single shot of rum. 

There’s some magic in bathroom mirrors that draws out the best sober clarity in everyone, which is a particular kind of nightmare for Steve Harrington. The rum sulks around just beneath his throat. He doesn’t have the stomach for this… he doesn’t drink as a _rule_.

Robin is laughing like a hyena and Billy is crouched over the coffee table rolling up a joint with expert fingers. Robin snorts and Billy snorts back at her in mock, again and again. Steve sways over to the armchair and sinks into it. He’s really fucking sad, and couldn’t tell anyone quite why. He was fine before he went to the bathroom. He was laughing when he shut the door.

The ceiling spins above him and he keeps seeing hands lifting out of the molding, has to fix his gaze along all edges, but the hands chase his periphery. He scratches his eyes, drags his fingers down his face. He looks at Robin who is giggling over the joint, her feet swinging around over the arm of her chair. Billy is just sitting there waiting for his turn, hand open and extended to her, his tan skin and perfect hair and silver earring gleaming, and he’s so handsome and so blasé that it hurts. And Steve is laying on his own couch about to vomit in his lap and cry, he’s just not sure which will happen first.

“So how long have you two…?” Billy flicks his finger between them, fills his lungs with the smoke, and holds it.

Robin gets up on the chair in a squat like a monkey and looks at Steve with a great big smile. “Yeah, _Steve_ , how long have we been…” She winks at him in an animated way.

Steve laughs, a little disbelieving, has to take a breather to think on it. Billy took this long to ask? What cues had they even given off that would lead one to believe that… And besides, Robin hasn’t come within five feet of him except to splash him with pool water. “We’re not,” Steve says, and it comes out sort of garbled so he says it again.

“Harrington’s drunk,” Robin says, and she stalks over to his chair to plop down beside him. It’s quite a squeeze with both of them, but she seems to draw out some of his spins, and her warmth is a welcome thing. It’s like she’s delivering him some sobriety via osmosis. He leans against her.

“You’re not dating?” Billy blows out a plume of smoke. When Steve follows the trail up, he realizes there is already a cloud hanging above them.

Robin and Steve shake their heads in unison.

“Thought something was weird about it,” Billy considers, examines the roach in his hand and stubs it out in one of Mr. Harrington’s fancy ashtrays.

“I’m not her type,” Steve giggles when Robin smacks him across the arm, but she falls into laughing too.

“Ohhhhh,” Billy waggles his eyebrows at that, dimples forming on his cheeks. “In Hawkins? There’s probably like two whole gay people in the state of Indiana.”

“You’d be surprised,” Robin tries to stifle her grin but she can’t. She shrugs, ”They just aren’t out.”

Billy nods to that and lets it drop, but Steve wants to get mouthy with him, to try to get him to say something wrong. Or just say something. Whatever Steve wants, he isn’t sure, but he wants to provoke and prod and feel. He remembers that he was really sad five minutes ago, and really happy five minutes before that. 

Billy never put his shirt on after he got out of the pool. He’s still sitting on his towel, the blue flood lights coming in from outside and the TV casting all kinds of colors along the dark walls, and over Billy. He was really strong when he beat the piss out of Steve, and it’s easy to see why. He’s built long and lean and sinewy. His jaw cuts a straight line out from his neck and he works on the muscles when he’s concentrating. Steve tries to figure out what’s wrong with his ears, like Billy said, but can’t find much of anything.

“You’re staring,” Robin whispers.

Billy looks up and winks at Steve, so Steve knows he heard which is _great_ , thank you Robin. He lifts up out of the chair with an excessive degree of effort and escapes into the kitchen. He’s a little less drunk now but his feet still feel heavy and wobbly.

He stuffs some plain white bread into his mouth and counts to twenty while he chews. He checks the front door three times because he keeps forgetting that it’s definitely locked. He shuts the blinds on the windows, just as afraid to look out as he is to be seen by whatever lurks. Then he tucks up on the corner of the counter and sips a glass of water. 

Someone is walking towards the kitchen, and Steve is too drunk and unfamiliar with Billy’s footsteps to know that it’s him, but it is. He opens up the fridge, letting light flood all over to which Steve shields his eyes. 

Steve’s happy to see Billy wobble a little bit and stumble on his footing. He feels less ridiculous for being so wasted. 

Billy chugs some coke and squints at Steve for a good long while, his eyes adjusting. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

“Ste-eve,” Billy sings, walking towards him, grin all teeth.

“Nothing,” Steve urges him again.

“Stop staring, Steve,” he teases, but his eyes soften.

Steve hopes, like seriously hopes to God that he won’t remember this in the morning. His heart feels like a little bomb that keeps going off in his ribcage. “She was talking to you when she said that.”

“Nah, she told me that already when you weren’t listening.”

Steve’s voice breaks and he looks around everywhere but Billy, brain not really computing fully on the implication, a manner of willful ignorance. “I kept all your letters,” Steve says, which is one of those sentences that doesn’t ask permission to come out. He’s really, really drunk.

Billy shrugs, then says, “I kept yours. Come on, Harrington.” He pats Steve’s knee and waves for him to get down and come back into the living room, so Steve does. And he hates being called Harrington, but right now he can’t work up the energy to care.


	5. meet your maker

They must have fallen asleep at some point in the early morning because Steve vaguely remembers twilight brightening the backyard. Billy is at least halfway dangling off the couch by now, face buried into his towel. Robin is snoring sweetly in her armchair and covered by a throw blanket. It’s ten in the morning and Steve has a cranking headache. He tries to sneak off quietly, but there is no stopping the nauseated groans when he walks past sunny windows, and he can forgive himself for that at least.

He fumbles around in the bathroom for ibuprofen and takes probably too many. He stands in the shower unmoving, the water running so hot that his skin turns watermelon pink, and he pinches the flesh on his sides and curses himself for getting drunk. 

Steve has a rule about drinking because he doesn’t like how he feels the day after. See, being drunk is fine. It’s trying to get out of the hole the next day that he hates. Because he always digs himself a hole. He’s twenty and he’s had enough of drinking for a lifetime, but then always does it again. Drinking was fun once, but now it’s just a little crowbar on the parts of Steve’s brain that he locked on purpose.

Speaking of, Steve’s brain keeps pressing him to remember the kitchen incident, and he scrubs his hair like he might will it to wash away. “I kept all your letters,” he mumbles to himself, “Hi, I’m Steve, I’m the biggest fucking idiot in the entire world.” He shuts the water off with the heel of his palm so hard it bruises.

Billy has helped himself to scrambled eggs and Robin is laying on the kitchen table shoveling some into her sideways face. Billy’s punching buttons on the coffeemaker to the point that it’s steaming in fruitless effort.

“Just use the press,” Steve pulls it from the cabinets and sets it in front of Billy. He pats Robin’s back and sits beside her, says, “Good morning, sunshine”

She makes some animal noise in response and tucks her head into a shelter she makes of her arms. “My mom is going to be so mad,” she whines, muffled in her cocoon. She went upstairs while he was in the shower and stole Steve’s clothes, he realizes, and so did Billy.

“Where did you tell her you went?”

“Your house! God, she definitely thinks I’m just being easy.”

“Is _that_ why she always gives me dirty looks?”

“Well, maybe, but that’s also just her face.”

Billy looks at her like he might speak, but doesn’t. He’s got on Steve’s sweatpants and they’re just a bit too small. Steve looks out the window. It feels like a betrayal that Steve can hardly open his eyes all the way and the birds are chirping that loud and the sun is that bright. He wishes it would start storming.

“I’m staying for coffee,” Robin decides, “But then I have to go meet my maker.”

Steve lifts his steaming mug at her in salute, and Billy follows.

***

It’s when she’s peeling out of the driveway that Steve remembers the gravity of both the size of his house and the relatively low number of current inhabitants. It sinks over him and makes it a chore to walk back inside. Billy is rifling through his little duffle bag. He tosses the contents out across the table: a few pairs of shorts, jeans, two t-shirts, a tank top, a wallet, cologne, and an old rolled up newspaper. He passes by Steve with his empty bag and walks to the edge of the porch, then upends the bag in the bushes. A heaping handful of sand floats away in the breeze and scatters across the lawn. Some cigarette butts land in the mulch. Steve picks up the newspaper which is dated to a few weeks ago and covered in cup-shaped water stains. Billy’s lit a cigarette and he’s scanning the yard and flicking ash in the bush, so Steve rifles casually through the paper. He’s about to call out and ask why Billy’s kept the old thing when a stack of little flowery pieces of stationary fall out of it across the table. Steve goes red.

They aren’t just from him, sure, there’s plain loose leaf and some xerox paper, too. From Max and El, even Will, other names he doesn’t recognize. There’s probably forty or fifty just here, and Steve shuffles them all back into the paper- probably does a shit job of unmaking the mess- but he rolls it back up, sets it down, and sprints through the living room and up the stairs.

Steve’s smiling. He’s beet red and his heart is racing, but he’s smiling and not sure exactly what for. He bends forward and hangs his head to shake out the nerves. He wasn’t supposed to see that, but it’s not like he was prying, anyway. Billy told Steve that he kept them. The screen door slams and Billy refills his bag. If he knows, he doesn’t say anything.

Steve smacks his cheeks and collects himself with a breath, shakes out his arms like he’s on the football team and he’s about to run onto the field. Then he goes back into the kitchen like nothing happened.

“Real ritzy, Harrington,” Billy points all around.

“I see you helped yourself to my closet—”

“Which is actually the size of my bedroom in LA.”

Steve doesn’t really know what to say to that, so he sips his coffee. It’s brewed stronger than he usually takes it.

“You stay here alone?” Billy asks.

“As little as possible. It’s creepy.”

“I’d hate it too.” It’s disarming that Billy’s hair is all kinds of messed up from sleeping on the couch, and he’s all tucked up in Steve’s pajamas and sipping out of a mug that says _Best Mom Ever_. To drive it all home, he just said something that is frighteningly adjacent to sincere.

“Well I get out of your hair in a bit, let me just clean up,” Billy says, setting his mug in the sink.

“Get out of my hair?”

“I might be a dick, but I know not to overstay my welcome.”

“A single night is not the greater extent of your welcome, Billy. Jesus, I mean I paid for you to fly out here, I’m not going to just dump you at some hotel.”

Billy looks over his shoulder, not quite at Steve, and then looks back down at the sink. “Fine. Can I shower here? I’m not staying again tonight. But I’ll stay at least til the kids leave.”

“Fine, but don’t act like I’m throwing you out. Cause I’m not.”

***

Billy showers and by the time it’s all said and done, the kids are rolling in on their bikes. Steve spent the afternoon organizing the mail for his dad, gone through what he can and makes a list of what he doesn’t understand. Billy makes fun of him for his reader glasses, so Steve makes fun of his earring.

Max is conspiring for Fourth of July plans barely after she’s in the door and there’s talks of the quarry. Steve is for sure going to make a cave out of his comforter and just try to sleep through it.

“Jesus, this place is a mess,” Dustin says, examining some weed residue he swiped off the coffee table with his finger.

Mike picks up a discarded joint and snickers at Dustin.

Billy smells like cologne, hair all washed up and teeth gleaming, and he stalks into the kitchen away from the crowd. Steve spent like an hour trying on outfits for no other reason than because he _wanted_ to, even though it’s not a thing he usually does.

“So,” Mike folds his hands over his long legs as he leans on the wall, “We have visitors coming next week.”

“What?” Max drops her backpack against the wall. “No way. No fucking way.”

“Language,” Billy calls out from the other room.

“Fuck you!” Max giggles.

“Fuck you too!”

“Wait, who’s coming?” Dustin asks.

Mike lets out his smile then, which means it’s definitely the girl, and Will and Joyce. 

“Why can’t they come this weekend?” Max makes an attempt at indignance, but she’s so happy already that it falls flat.

Mike shrugs, “Will has cousins upstate. I guess they’re spending Friday and Saturday there, and then they’ll be here.” 

Max spins around and gives Lucas a little, friendly shove. Her braids whip around her face when she jumps; Steve hasn’t seen her so happy since they first met.

Billy hovers a little in the kitchen archway, sneaks around the hall and disappears. Steve wells up some courage to follow, except Wheeler is right on his heels.

“Hey, Steve,” Mike says when they’re away from the others, clearing his throat, “I was wondering if El and I could stay here. Like, all of us, I mean, at least one or two nights.” His voice cracks and he shifts on his feet.

“Nancy would kill me.”

“Nancy would be a hypocrite if—“

“Mike, Hopper will rise from the dead and strangle me if I let you too sleep alone together.”

Mike rolls his eyes, but his shoulders sink. “Yeah, he fuckin’ would.”

“I’ll think about it. But no separate room. Okay? Sleeping bags on the floor with everyone else. _If_ I even say yes.”

Mike walks away quickly, like if he stands there he is giving Steve room to go back on it, and yells, “Thanks! You’re the best!” over his shoulder.

“I didn’t even say yes,” Steve tells the wall. 

Billy is haunting around in the upstairs looking over family pictures. He peaks into Steve’s room, even though he knows Steve is watching, even though him and Robin raided it earlier.

“Look,” Billy points to a baby photo of Steve, “Sallow and haggard.”

“Fuck off,” Steve laughs. “Everything okay?”

Billy nods. His hands are in fists in his pockets.

“Right.”

“Stop looking at me like that, Harrington,” as if Billy can tell how Steve is looking at him. Steve looks away anyway.

“What are your plans for the day? When should I drop you at the motel?”

“I don’t actually need you to, I have someone picking me up, so.”

“Oh, good. Cool.”

Suddenly, Steve feels a little stupid and sort of desperate. It doesn’t really make sense why, even though there is a Billy-shaped hole cut out of Steve’s brain right now, which _should_ make it obvious. 

Steve read probably two books in the span of his entire education and bribed out for most of his essays. He started with taped books from the library, just to have a human voice in the house. Well, then the library didn’t have the tape in for _The Return of the King_ and what was Steve supposed to do, abandon the trilogy on the third installment? So he read the damn book. And he just kept going. That was unbelievable enough, but then he was actually reading _letters_ he got in the mail because Billy Hargrove was sending them.

Then, he would be disappointed if the mailman came without one.

Steve isn’t expecting anything. It’s not like he flew him out here for any other reason than just to be a good friend (if that’s a word he can use, but he doesn’t want to ask). And what could he possibly expect, I mean seriously? He’s just going to go in his room when the kids leave, as usual, and wait until someone around him drags him to another function, and his life is going to go on like that. Hopefully with a smattering of letters from Billy, because those are good. And that should be enough.

Existential crises aside, Steve says, “I’m going back downstairs.”

And Billy asks him, “Is it alright if I stay here again?”


	6. no times

Now that the kids are off school, there will always be someone lurking around in Steve’s house during the day, which is a welcome thing. Billy seems to have taken up as resident chef, and that’s good because it means Steve won’t have to do it. The entire group of kids working together could probably come up with lukewarm canned soup and burnt grilled cheese, but only if their lives depended on it. Steve’s dad complains about the gas bill but not the obscene grocery bill that’s accommodating at minimum five more people than Steve at all times.

It’s some girl that picks Billy up and drops him off right before dinner, and Billy comes in smelling like cheap perfume, and no one says anything. They make pizza and decimate it over a scary movie. Steve feels pretty good, and then the kids all scatter home, and that makes him queasy. He considers calling Robin but she is in deep shit still, and her mother will probably hang up on him anyway.

Billy whistles while he does the dishes, he turns the TV louder, he makes sure the doors are locked up. He acts totally, perfectly comfortable. Steve is perched on the couch pretending to watch Miami Vice. Billy thumbs through Mr. Harrington’s gratuitous record collection. He doesn’t say anything, but he has adopted Steve’s sweatpants. Steve chews the inside of his cheek.

Billy’s curated a pretty stack of records, and he’s opening up the glass cabinet where the turntable is. He didn’t ask, and Steve wishes he did just so he could say, “Yeah, whatever, you don’t need to ask me.”

The needle hits the record and buzzes a bit before a twangy riff starts up, one that Steve recognizes but cannot place. Then he’s giggling, because Billy put on Rumours. Which makes both perfect sense and none at all. Steve’s _mom_ likes Fleetwood Mac, and now Billy’s smirking and bouncing lightly around in his armchair, watching Steve take humor in his music taste.

Billy’s laughing, snapping to the beat, “What, Harrington? Who doesn’t love Stevie Nicks? You don’t love Stevie Nicks?” He turns up the volume knob and stands to do some faux Elvis moves.

“I do love Stevie Nicks,” Steve admits. Dreams comes on next, which is a song his mom made him dance to when she was hopped up on some prescription uppers. Steve can’t really wipe the smile off his face, can’t really look at Billy right now who is swaying around and singing.

“I’m gonna call you Stevie,” Billy grins at him.

Then he’s standing right there in front of Steve, dancing around, grinning, and he’s grabbing Steve’s arms and trying to get him to swing with him. Steve hangs his head, tries to make his limbs heavy. Billy pulls him up from the couch. Steve feels stupid and awkward and lanky, but Billy holds his hands and twirls him around like a girl, and Steve bumps into the coffee table with his knees. Billy lets him go from the twirl and goes off to shuffle around the armchair, still singing. He doesn’t sing half badly and the confidence makes it better. Steve stands there dazed and then sinks onto the couch. Billy waits until the song is over and pops on a quiet, old blues record that Steve doesn’t recognize.

They watch Miami Vice in silence until Billy stretches out and yawns loudly, and Steve peaks at him from behind his blanket.

“Guest room,” Steve says, and Billy nods. They close up shop, shut the TV off, work as a nice team straightening things up, and then Billy follows Steve up the stairs.

“This one,” Steve flicks the light on in the room next to his, with the gaudy gingham print quilt. 

“Better than the motel,” Billy says, sizing it up as if he hasn’t already stuck his duffel in here before Steve led him to it.

Steve agonized somewhat about putting Billy further down the hall, but he didn’t want to seem rude. And if he really needed to get away, he could go sleep in his parent’s room. It seems Billy made the decision for him in that way, and that provides a little relief.

“Night,” Steve tells him, 

“Night, Stevie,” Billy gives him a look like he’s hoping for some protest, but Steve just rolls his eyes and walks into his room. He permits himself to smile once his back is flat against the door. Then, he feels fucking dumb and wipes it off with his hand.

In the morning, Billy is already nursing a cup of coffee and a cigarette when Steve walks downstairs. 

“I want pancakes,” Billy calls inside from the porch.

“We have mix.”

“No you don’t. Where? I checked.”

“The cabinet above the—“ Steve says, just as he checks the cabinet above the stove. 

“Told you,” Billy says, and it sounds like he’s smiling.

“You don’t know how to make ‘em from scratch?”

“Who knows how to make ‘em from scratch? My fuckin’ Grandma.”

“ _I_ know how to make them from scratch,” Steve points at himself, a little indignant at that.

“Do it, then,” Billy peeks into the screen door and blows some smoke from the side of his mouth.

“Fine,” Steve mumbles.

He makes them from scratch, and Billy takes them with blueberries and way, way too much syrup. It’s not important, but Steve notices that Billy looks him in the eye when he’s talking, even if the subject is boring. He’ll try not to read into that.

“I gotta visit Susan today,” Billy says, then puffs a fake fart noise from his mouth and sinks back into his chair to show that he’s stuffed.

“Need a lift?” It’s raining, which Steve is highly, extremely pleased with. But it’s not exceptional weather for walking or getting into a car with a girl with cheap perfume. Well, the weather has nothing to do with that last bit, but Steve has a perfectly good car.

“Actually,” Billy lifts his eyebrows, “I’ll suck you off if you’re serious. Because that would be awesome.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve says, suppressing a manic bit of laughter that creeps up his windpipe.

“I have some cash I can throw you,” Billy puts his hand over Steve’s, “Seriously, thanks. I appreciate it a lot.”

Steve is a little taken back by the sincerity because Billy is never sincere, he’s always joking. And he is never smiling, always grinning. Predatory, gleeful, sadistic in a mild way at his very best, that’s Steve’s expert evaluation. But right then he was a little sincere, and that messes up the whole hypothesis.

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve says again. He takes his dish to the sink, then says, “You know, you can just take my keys. So I don’t have to like, drive four times. I can drive _no_ times.”

“Dude,” Billy blinks at him, “Okay, if you’re sure. Thank you.”

Steve romances about laying in bed with a book with the windows open and the rain hitting the roof, and driving no times. He does _not_ romance about anything else. He doesn’t, because that would be fucking stupid.


	7. parent department

Steve spent the afternoon trying to press through some shitty poetry book because he is a masochist and will drag himself bloody and dying through the pages before he dares not finish a book. The kids only show up after Dustin’s mom gets out of work and picks them all up. Mrs. Henderson always brings Steve leftovers and kisses him on the cheek. Max is missing, which means Billy is probably still at Susan’s.

“Dusty is _so_ excited about Will visiting,” she holds her hands over her heart and smiles wistfully. “Oh, Mike mentioned you would be hosting the kids for a sleepover? Would you like for me to stay and chaperone?”

“Oh, I didn’t—“ Steve sighs. “No, it’s fine, they’re pretty well behaved. I think Joyce is planning to stay, anyway.”

“Dear, I hope so,” Mrs. Henderson says, wiggling her fingers through the door at Dustin. “I trust you,” she says, rubs Steve’s forearm.

“Thanks, Mrs. Henderson.” He feels a little bad for lying, but he knows he’ll get lambasted if he invites Dustin’s mom as a special guest, so it’s the lesser of two evils.

She pulls the back of her jacket over her head, which creates a very flattering hunchback effect, and scampers off through the rain to her little yellow and brown station wagon.

“So,” Dustin ambushes him as soon as he steps through the door, “Why did you have _Billy_ here?”

Steve glares at him, “Dustin, it’s my house. And Jesus, you think he wanted all of that shit to happen?”

“I could barely tell the Mindflayer was in there, since his usual attitude was so similar—“

“Shut up.”

“He tried to kill us, Steve”

“He won’t do it again,” Steve sighs.

“How do you know for sure?”

“I just do. Do you trust Will?”

“Of course I trust Will, he’s my friend—“

“And Billy is my— my friend, so.”

Dustin wrinkles his nose, but thankfully he seems a little mollified and steps aside so Steve can pass. Dustin is fifteen with the moral complexity of a five-year-old, but he also has more trauma than, like, every average person, so Steve lets it slide. They play Monopoly while Steve officiates, since Lucas keeps sneaking paper bills just to irk Dustin, and Mike keeps forgetting to collect rent.

Steve’s bimmer rolls up in the driveway- he should really trade the thing in- and Billy and Max stomp off their wet shoes and leave their borrowed raincoats on the porch.

Billy knocks into Steve’s shoulder when he flops onto the couch next to him. “That was weird,” he whispers about his visit with Susan.

“Weird in a bad way?”

“No,” Billy shrugs. “It was fine. Got some of my old stuff.”

Billy flicks through the channels and puts his feet up over Steve’s lap, like he god damned owns this house and Steve might as well be an underprivileged guest. Steve gives his ankles a slap, but Billy just smirks at the TV, so Steve folds and makes peace with it.

Later, Billy looks long and hard at the leftovers from Mrs. Henderson, sniffs it and tilts his head trying to understand what concoction of yellow foods she made into a kind of shepherd’s pie. 

“Oh, that’s for you,” Steve tells him. “That’s all we have for you to eat.”

Billy gives him a look, and Steve shrugs and says, “Sorry, man.”

Billy tosses the tupperware into the back of the shelf and sticks his tongue out, “Gag me.”

“Ask nicely,” Steve says. 

Billy raises his eyebrow and hangs on the fridge door. “I don’t ask nicely,” he says, then goes to rifle through the cabinets and starts pulling out whatever looks good.

“Tomorrow is the 4th,” Steve says.

“Yeah, what are you doing?”

“The kids are going to the Quarry, I guess.”

“What are _you_ doing, Stevie?” Billy slices some carrots up on the cutting board.

“Uh, avoiding the fireworks at all costs.”

Billy pauses his slicing, and Steve stares at the nape of his neck. They discussed it a while ago, or, they mentioned it in passing in the letters. Billy’s shoulder blade starts working, and he keeps cutting.

“I will be doing that with you,” Billy says in a markedly mild voice. 

Steve’s not gonna argue, so he hops down from the counter and says, “Do you need help with dinner?”

***

Billy spent the morning showering up and the afternoon with cheap perfume girl, and he’s back around four o’clock and takes up post at the grill for the kids. He asks Steve about Robin, gives a little pout when Steve tells him her mom is being rigid, and Max mirrors it on one of the loungers. There’s a merciful break in humidity despite the storms of days past, but it’s still hotter than a bitch. Billy doesn’t wear a shirt when he’s grilling. Steve sits with his back to him. The two things are unrelated.

The kids are all 15 and 16 now, so Steve can let them go to the quarry alone. Except the monsters that once crawled Hawkins do not discriminate on age, so there’s a little nervous ticking inside of Steve’s ears when they kick off on their bikes and leave. Billy makes Max pinky promise she won’t smoke, and Max clarifies _cigarettes_ with a Billy-like grin. Billy covers his ears and says, “I didn’t hear that,” with a wink.

Steve checks the locks on the back door and leaves the flood lights on. The front door is locked too, but the kids know where the keys are in case they need him. He tucks into his bed and swaddles in his blanket. Billy takes two trips into Steve’s room: one with a bed tray piled high with snacks and alcohol, another to sling a few records and the turntable, the cord dragging behind on the floor.

Billy turns the turntable volume on high, and they shut the blinds and the curtains. He sinks onto Steve’s bed, and Steve says, “Can you lock the door?” so he does.

When he sits down again, he sighs. He clutches his beer to his chest and stares at the wall. Steve leans over him and cracks open a beer. It’s a small mercy that these ones are cold.

“Someone set off fireworks for Memorial Day,” Steve says, “And I freaked my mom out so bad. I cried in the corner. I passed out.”

“People are always setting off fireworks or sparklers at the beach and stuff. I have these headphones that cancel noise because otherwise I get panicky.”

They drink their beer in silence for a while until Billy says, “I don’t remember any of it. I remember driving, and then I remember being at the mall. Then I was in the hospital. And man, that was like, six fucking months of my life.”

Steve opens his mouth to speak but gets a little angry with himself when nothing comes out. 

“I went to live with my Aunt because she bugged Neil enough and he finally told her I was in the hospital.. She came to visit me, to like say goodbye or whatever. Well, I woke up like a day after she got there. I thought she was my fuckin’ mom when I woke up.” His eyes are dry but he still covers one with his fingers. “I needed all this fucking rehab and Neil basically said I was shit out of luck, but my Aunt Cindy did it.”

“She’s a good woman,” Steve says.

“Seriously. Willy was like my rehab dog. Therapy dog, whatever.”

“Why did you leave Oregon?”

“I don’t know. I got the itch, remember. My Aunt was so mad. We had this big blowout before I left, she told me to stop chasing my mom.”

“Is that what you were doing?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe.”

“Does she… know where your mom is?”

“No idea. She fell off the face of the fuckin’ Earth. Tells you something that my Aunt was in touch with Neil before my mom, huh? The whole thing makes my mom look like an asshole.”

Steve wants to say, hey, you’re mom is a fucking asshole for just leaving you with someone she knew to be an abuser, and what kind of fucking person can just up and leave their child with a monster, and God, the kids are five years Steve’s junior and _not_ his kids and he probably cares about them more than that. But Steve doesn’t know the whole story, and anyway he doesn’t feel like upsetting anyone right now, so he stays quiet.

“Anyway. Jesus, Sorry,” Billy wipes his dry eyes again and knocks back the rest of his can. He crushes it and chucks it at the garbage bin.

“Don’t be,” Steve says, then jumps, because even over the loud music, he can feel the thunderous booming of fireworks outside. There’s some anxiety that goes alight then because the severity will only ramp until the finale, and these things always go on too long.

Billy reaches down and grabs Steve’s hand. He’s not holding it, Steve decides, he’s really just kind of gripping the fingers in a non-reciprocal way. Steve is squeezing back. But not reciprocally. 

“Tell me some fucked up stuff so I feel better,” Billy says.

“Where do I start?” Steve laughs a little weakly. “My parents are home like 10% of the year. My dad calls me a pussy and a failure when he _is_ here and my mom is a walking mood swing. I love my mom. I really love my mom and I love my dad too, but.”

Billy nods, says, “You got screwed in the parent department too,” as if Steve’s situation holds a candle to his. 

Steve’s shoulders are pretty much touching his ears because he’s so tense. “Got any more valium?” he laughs.

Billy shakes his head no. “Bottoms up,” he says and makes a show of chugging another beer.

Steve has his rule, so he just sips on his and squeezes Billy’s hand. Billy gets pretty drunk by the time he consumes whatever he brought up on the tray. Their palms are horribly clammy when he pulls away to open a can of cheez balls, but neither of them mention it.

Suddenly Billy is snoring lightly with his hand resting in the cheez balls, so Steve flicks the light off, extricates the can, and falls asleep. It’s the best night sleep he’s gotten in a damn while, and he doesn’t have the wherewithal to consider why.


	8. swedish sauna

It’s nighttime and Steve is in his pool. He’s in the deep end and the big, blue flood lights are on. The water stings his eyes and he can barely make out the night sky and the moon rippling above him. The pool goes on forever below him, just as cavernous as the sky but starless, and there are these things climbing out of the dark mouth that tether him by the ankles. He starts to panic, watches bubbles go by his face when he screams. There’s a figure moving towards him in the water, the shape of a man but completely shadow. It glides to him and pulls him down, down, down into the deep end forever, pulls him over some ledge below. Except now he’s on the pool deck, and Billy is smacking his face and brushing his hair away. He can’t breath, like he’s still underwater. Billy shakes him, says, “Steve? Steve. C’mon Steve.”

Then he’s back in his bedroom, a little disoriented, his breath absolutely disgusting and his heart racing a million miles a minute. Billy is leaning over him, brushing his hair out of his face.

“Nightmare,” Steve says, falling back onto the pillow and squeezing his eyes shut. His clock says 8:00 am, which is a fucking miracle. 

“Yeah,” Billy says. He leans back on his elbows and tears his eyes away from Steve. He looks frazzled, worried. Steve must have woken him up.

Steve is sorely regretting falling asleep with a hoodie on because he feels claustrophobic and feverish. He rips it off. He needs a shower. Billy’s thinking the same, because he whips the comforter off and says, “My ass is sweating.”

Steve touches the door handle to the bathroom across the hall, but Billy says, “Dibs! The water pressure is better in there than downstairs.”

“Fuck off,” Steve says, but he’s kind of smiling so it’s about as mild as saying good morning.

He goes to his parents master bath, because Billy doesn’t know there’s a full walk-in shower _and_ a Swedish sauna, and that’s because Steve is keenly embarrassed about his wealth. 

“Um,” Billy says over his bagel, “I’m thinking of leaving next week. I just need to give myself enough time to get another job and make rent, ya know.”

“Yeah… yeah. We can call and book you a flight right now.” They schedule him for Thursday afternoon.

Billy takes Max to the movies (his cologne lingers in the air for actual hours and Steve thinks he’s going bananas), and Steve spends his afternoon at the grocery store with Dustin, who picks up maybe six dozen hot dogs. Steve doesn’t have the vigor required to do more than give him a dirty look. He is trying very, very hard right now to not plan around Billy’s schedule. He’s sick of just being home and waiting for Billy to come and go, thinks it makes him look like a loser. So he’s staying out of the house til tonight.

Dustin admits that he called Robin on his own volition- “What, Steve? You know her mom is pissed at you.”- and invited her to their community sleepover, which is apparently Sunday night. Steve acts surprised, but he’s not. He’s not surprised that people are just planning around him, even though it’s _his_ house. Not like he really cares, anyway. 

Billy and Max are not there when they get home, and Steve puts Dustin to the task of putting the groceries away. The phone rings, and Steve says, “Hello?”

“Hi!” It’s a girl, who is giggling.

“Who’s… this?”

“Oh— oh. I’m Vanessa. This isn’t Billy? Is he there?”

“No. He’s out.”

“Oh. Well can you tell him that I called?”

“Sure thing.” Steve feels a little guilt at slamming the phone down, and Dustin looks at him like he’s got two heads. “What, punk?” he says and stomps away.

Dustin mumbles, “What did I do?” to the oranges he’s putting in the fruit bowl.

That gives him a little boot in the ass, so he drags Dustin home and shows up to Nancy’s place without a notice ahead. Mrs. Wheeler is making cookies in a dainty apron, and she kisses Steve on the cheek, her perfect teeth and sweet eyes smiling at him.

Nancy is in her room, and she doesn’t look surprised when Steve walks in.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, not unkindly, putting earrings in and evaluating them in her vanity mirror.

“I was passing by,” he lies.

“Oh,” she smiles. “Been a while. How’s the Hargrove thing?”

Steve leans against the doorway and waves his hand around to say _it’s whatever_ , but his mouth says, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?” Nancy tilts her head and him and throws her arms down. Her hair is short and crimped and falls in a pretty way around her head.

“It’s fine,” Steve bandaids, but when you set Nancy Drew on a trail she sinks her teeth in like a small dog and doesn’t let go.

“Steve,” she says.

“Nance,” he says back.

“Tell him to stay at the motel,” she says, shrugging her shoulders like it’s the most obvious thing. Her and Mike have obviously discussed this to some length.

“That would be… really rude,” Steve looks at her closet door and shoves his hands in his jean pockets.

“Billy is _really_ rude,” she laughs. There’s an austerity that comes over her that makes her look a bit bigger than she actually is.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well. Ugh. Okay,” she bites her lip, crosses her arms, taps her foot, and says, “Jonathan is working tonight. I was going to go out with Christina but honestly… give me an excuse not to go,” she puts her lower lip out.

Steve gestures to himself and nods, and she drops her arms to her sides again and smiles.

They go to main street just to have somewhere to walk around. Nancy talks about this story she’s working on and how Jonathan got these amazing photos of the family and captured all this emotion, and it’s just amazing and _the best_ , most revolutionary thing Nancy has _ever_ seen. And okay, Steve is happy for her, but it’s hard to listen to, it just is. But when he can set his stupid, bruised, sad excuse for an identity aside, he is genuinely happy for them. He wishes he liked journalism or photography, or anything else half as much.

Someone strung up these beautiful, white lanterns along the street lamps and side posts, and probably half of Hawkins is walking main street because it’s Saturday night. No one looks twice at Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler, which feels good. They occupy a bench in the park, and Nancy works on her vanilla ice cream cone. Steve got chocolate because he isn’t boring.

She squints her eyes like she’s lured him into a trap, and she probably has. She says, “So,” and Steve sighs. “Tell me about Billy.” Then she grabs his keys from his pocket and rips them away, and laughs hysterically when Steve gasps.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Steve. Steve, I’m a journalist. You know what they tell you when you’re a journalist? The people who aren’t willing to talk about it are the people who have the best things to say.”

“Great, well,” Steve is kind of dumbfounded. His chocolate ice cream is melting down his hand.

“If you won’t tell me I’ll just ask Robin.”

“Robin would never betray me,” Steve puts on a Dustin-like grandiosity, ”She was my friend first.”

“Right. You’re implying that if Robin revealed something to me that it would be a betrayal. Honestly, Steve, you are such a bad liar. I didn’t even think anything was up until you go all nervous and went—“ she furrows her brows, puffs up her shoulders, and puts on a deep voice, ” _I don’t want to talk about it_.”

“Nancy,” Steve whines and hangs his head over the back of the bench, “Stoooop. You’re torturing me.”

“Okay, that’s fine. But you’re gonna tell me.”

“No.”

“Yes. Can I guess? Did he beat you up again? Is he smoking cigarettes in the house? Did he steal your money?”

Steve shuts his eyes and wishes all of that were true.


	9. billies (plural)

Steve gets home after dark, probably nine or so. The lights are on in the kitchen, and he can hear the TV through the screen door. Billy’s shoes were kicked off on the mat. He’s got a fan oscillating five feet from his face, and he’s wearing Steve’s sweatshirt and some boxer briefs. Steve imagines a scenario where his dad comes home to this and wonders who the fuck is in his son’s clothes and just his underwear on the couch. It makes him giddy. Billy looks sideways over the arm of the couch and presses the remote to his mouth, a play at being coy. He stares at Steve, so, Steve stares back. He crushes under the pressure and has to look away, but Billy does not.

“Hey,” Billy says, and looks back to the TV.

“Hi.” 

“Can I use the weights in the basement?” Billy asks, “I’m getting all noodly.”

“That’s fine,” Steve says, pads down the hall to go to his room.

“You leaving me down here, Stevie?” Billy calls out. 

Steve looks up at the ceiling and silently asks it to collapse on him. “Maybe,” he says, “Tired.”

Then Billy leaps off the couch and is jogging up to the stairs. He peaks around the corner and leans on the wall. Steve stops on the stairs midway and turns around to look at him. His legs are stupidly strong, and just _there_ , all exposed, and Steve’s sweatshirt rides up his belly so a little bit of his hip bones are peaking out. Steve blinks. 

“Did I do something to make you mad?” Billy says.

“No,” Steve says. He’s being a little rude, yeah, but God, Steve doesn’t understand how to perform nuanced human expression anymore and if the words come out that way then so be it.

“Okay,” Billy squints up at him.

“Oh, someone called for you.”

“Oh, yeah? When?”

“I don’t know. Earlier.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t remember. A girl,” Steve says, and turns around to go up the stairs. He isn’t even angry, so what’s possessing him to be like this, he doesn’t know, but he can at least spare his dignity and keep up the conviction for another ten seconds before he’s safe in his room.

He sits on his bed, kicks off his clothes and slumps into pajamas. He winces and thinks about what Nancy said, or, at least what was implied. That there is something here to _know_ and that Steve is “acting weird about it, that’s all”. She finally let it go, for now, and Steve invited her to the sleepover tomorrow night. She obliged and said Jonathan probably would too. It’s in the interest of spending time with them, sure, but it’s an added benefit that Steve can potentially have at least one person between him and Billy at all times.

Steve’s brain is doing treacherous things again; it’s made Billy into three parts. There is mindflayer Billy, there is letter Billy, and there is _this_ Billy that’s sitting in his house. He is different from letter Billy for some reason, because Steve’s brain does things that make no sense. He felt comfortable, amicable, even close with letter Billy. _This_ Billy makes him want to hide in a hole. Steve’s having difficulty bridging the gap.

So Steve sits down and writes to letter Billy, though he won’t send it.

***

Billy,

You are downstairs. Nancy keeps saying there’s something up. I don’t even know what that means. Sorry I was mean to you just then, you didn’t do anything. This is stupid. I’m stupid. You won’t see this, so I don’t care. Stop judging me.

How do you just act like nothing is wrong? How are you just fine? I feel like I have to hide the fact that I’m freaking about about everything. I panic when I’m in the grocery store and the clerk isn’t, like, overly nice to me. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what you told me yesterday and how you took that time. But you’re dating and stuff and being a normal 20 something, which is frankly psychotic. It’s not like I was hoping you would show up and be pathetic and depressed, because I don’t want that. I think I’m just looking in the mirror and not matching up. It’s been a year, Steve. Get it together.

What I’m saying is: stop being better than me. Ha ha. I’m sending this to you telepathically before I set it on fire.

Steve

***

Billy is downstairs talking to someone. Steve’s a little confused when he looks out the window and there are no bikes leaning on his lawn or cars in the driveway. He looks at his phone for a good while on the nightstand. He picks it up with expert, surgical consideration, and lifts it to his ear.

“What about tomorrow?” Vanessa says. She giggles more than she talks.

“Oh, baby, wish I could,” Billy’s putting on a voice, “But I got plans. Ya know, in town for family and all. Keeping me busy.”

Vanessa pouts a little incoherently and sighs.

“How about Tuesday?” Billy asks her.

“Yes! Perfect. I can pick you up again? You’re still at your cousins house?”

“Yeah, you know, that would be perfect. Thanks, honey.” 

Steve can picture his shit-eating grin. _Cousin_. He slams the phone down, even though it will probably make it obvious he was on the line.

Steve really wasn’t kidding about setting the letter on fire. He walks right past Billy, but not before he nabs his pack of cigarettes off the side table. Damn it all, it’s dark out which makes his knees a little weak, but there’s a bat in the shed if he needs it. He sets the little sheet of stationary under some firewood in the pit, puts it aflame with the same lighter he lights his cigarette with. He watches as it curls up and turns to ash. He hates smoking, but the nicotine loosens the lock on his jaw and all the junctions of muscle in his limbs, parts that have been bound up for a long time. 

The sliding door whirs open and Billy steps onto the patio. He points at the half-burnt paper in the pit and says, “What’s that?” 

“I wrote a letter,” Steve says.

“To who?”

Steve’s skin burns, little waves of heat going down his spine, adrenaline seeping. “My cousin,” he says, voice hoarse.

“What the fuck is going on, Steve?”

Steve wishes he had the answer.

“Everything was fine last time I saw you and now you’re all fucking mad. I mean, I can go, I can stay at the motel, I’ll even fucking walk.”

“No,” Steve says, “I don’t—“

“Then what’s with the dramatics?” Billy plucks a cigarette from the pack, “Jesus, if you wanted me to see you should have just—“

“Obviously I didn’t want you to see, Billy, I fucking burned it.”

“Why burn it? Like I’m gonna go sniffing it out or something? You gotta come out here and show me that you’re mad?”

“I didn’t— I didn’t do this to prove anything or make a fucking show of it. I sit by the fire sometimes. I happened to have this letter that I want to get rid of.”

“Right. I’m gonna kick your fucking ass, Harrington,” Billy laughs, not meaning it seriously, of course, not the way he used to. 

“It’s funny, you keep saying that,” Steve stands up from his chair. His body and his mouth are really betraying him right now. He is not on board with what is happening; he’s floating somewhere in the woods.

Billy bites on his lip. His eyes are big, angry, intense. He stands between Steve and the fire pit, walking frighteningly slow, and reaches up to grab Steve by the hair.

“Steve Harrington,” Billy says, voice real low, gripping the back of Steve’s neck, “I will hand your ass to you on a silver platter.”

Steve breathes out through his nostrils, leans into Billy’s hand, wants to say _do it. Hit me._ But Billy lets him go, turns around, and laughs into the cigarette he’s lighting.

Steve’s ready to swing at something, ready to pull Billy around by the collar of his sweatshirt and bloody him up, when Billy blows out some smoke and says, “Let’s go for a ride.”

Billy jumps into some jeans and fastens the belt. He slides on his shoes. He grabs Steve‘s keys, takes Steve by the wrist, and drags him to the car. _He_ drives, doesn’t ask otherwise, and Steve slides into the passenger seat. Billy flicks through the channels, finds some rock station and puts the volume all the way up. He’s already got another cigarette somehow, and he’s voraciously drumming out the beat on the steering wheel and whipping the car like a lunatic. His hair is all cropped and curly, cherubic. Cherubic is a word Steve read in the shitty poetry book. Billy has tan, perfect skin, and full cheeks, and cherubic curls. And Billy’s eyes are— they’re eyes. Billy certainly has eyes. Steve stares out at the blur of black trees as they speed by.

“Where are we going?” Steve mumbles a few miles down the road, a few songs deep. 

Billy says, “Huh?” and cups his ear, so Steve turns the music down and says it again.

“We are driving down the road until you wipe that puss off your pretty face, Harrington,” he says, grinning, and turns to volume knob up again.

Steve sinks low into his seat, the seatbelt strangling up under his jaw, and covers his face with his hands.


	10. princess

Steve considers the logistics of the thing while Billy head bangs to Metallica and Iron Maiden. If Steve just… makes a content enough face, Billy will be satisfied and turned around? He’s not even looking at Steve, so. Steve wants to slide down into his shirt, shrink into a small scrap of flesh, and rot away.

Maybe a half an hour goes by before Billy turns down the volume and puts on something a little less abrasive. They’re already in the next town over, and soon they’ll be driving out of Roane County.

“Hm,” Billy evaluates a shitty little truck stop that Steve has conscientiously avoided many times. “Want some greasy food?” He asks, but he’s already pulling in. He rolls into a parking spot between towering flatbeds and trailers, like he means to actually go in.

“Come on, Stevie.”

Billy pulls hard on Steve’s bare arm, the grip burning on his skin. “Not hungry,” Steve whines, shuts his eyes to the harsh yellow lights.

“Fine,” Billy says, and the way he pulls his hand away sets Steve back some more. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

“You kinda have no choice.”

“What are you gonna do? Murder me?”

“Why do you think I brought you out here?”

“I’m not going to tell you, Billy, because there is nothing wrong.”

“Okay, and I was born yesterday. Really Steve, I’m a day old.” He puts his hand back on Steve’s shoulder and gives him a shake. Then he runs his fingertips over Steve’s ear and slots some of Steve’s hair in his hand. He uses his thumb to push it away from Steve’s forehead.

Steve stares at the dashboard, lets a little sigh out. No one’s touched him like that in a while, he notices, which is a peculiar and embarrassing thought to have.

Billy runs his thumb over Steve’s scar, the one he gave him, the ‘plate business’. He leans forward over the console and says, “Sorry.” He’s a breath a-fucking-way when Steve looks up.

Steve just whispers, “It’s okay.”

Billy doesn’t pull away yet and stares down in a way that hurts. His eyes are blue, Steve realizes, but his pupil’s are always so blown that they look brown. Billy’s lips part. Steve’s ears are ringing when Billy finally pulls away. It almost looks like he’s missing a beat when he sits back. Steve exhales on the console and has to use all the strength in his body to straighten up against the seat.

Billy nods, slaps his own thighs over his jeans, and says, “Let’s get you home,” and doesn’t look at Steve for the rest of the ride.

Steve goes quietly to his bedroom door, and Billy sort of acts like he’s going into the guest room, but he doesn’t. He clears his throat and lines up behind Steve. Steve stares over his shoulder at him, and Billy just scratches his nose and looks at the floor. When Steve goes into his bedroom, Billy follows.

Steve gets under the blanket, and Billy takes his jeans off, then he does too. He faces away from Steve, and he shuts off the lamp before Steve even has to ask.

By the morning, Steve’s old bed has sunk both of them against one another into the center of the mattress, where an indent lies from years of Steve sleeping there. He pretends he’s still asleep, because having someone right there is nice and Billy’s leaving in four days anyhow, so he’ll let Billy get up first. Some time passes in a lazy way and the sunlight creeps up the window, then Billy stirs. Steve keeps his eyes shut until Billy is in the bathroom down the hall.

Dustin gets to Steve’s house first, and Mrs. Henderson is lobbing probably six totes bags with bandaids, medicine, food, and scatterings of essentials, plus pool toys and other summer paraphernalia. She kisses Dustin a hundred times and gives Steve a bright red pamphlet with emergency numbers.

“Is she always like this?” Billy whispers out the side of his mouth to Steve after grabbing the bags off the porch.

“Yeah,” Steve laughs, “Always.”

It’s Mike that shows next, and he’s only got a book bag. Joyce was set to arrive at the motel an hour ago, so any minute until they should be pulling in. Mike is wearing a crisp button-up, but his hair is still a black rat’s nest. He’s preening it in the hallway mirror every fifteen minutes.

Joyce barely pulls to a stop when Will and El are sprinting up the porch, big smiles on their faces. El leaps into Mike’s arms, and Will says hello over her shoulder. Then, bizarrely, El walks past Dustin and Steve straight for Billy, and gives him a hug too, albeit gentler than she gave to Mike. Dustin looks positively betrayed, and waves his hands at Steve behind her back to express his anger. Billy looks just as surprised, and he hugs her gingerly, sort of wobbles and coughs when she pulls away.

Will is as tall as Jonathan now and El didn’t grow a single inch, but her hair is down to her waist. She articulates better and talks with regular pacing now, which is jarring. Mike watches her with wide eyes. She talks with her hands. She smiles. She leans into Joyce when she walks by. She’s wearing overalls and sneakers that a cool girl would wear.

Steve feels like he’s the last piece of shit that’s only scraping by.

Then he takes that feeling, boxes it up, and burns it in the metaphorical fire pit.

Joyce kisses everyone like five times, even Billy. Will starts blushing furiously when Billy sits next to him. They crowd around the pool and El talks about how she joined chess club, since she got so good when she was living with Hopper. A little vigil of reverence takes them over for a minute or two and they sit quietly in the sun. Joyce squeezes El’s hand and does her solemn smile.

Max busts through the door, Lucas trailing, and the six of them take up this insane group hug that looks like it’s the end scene of a TV show. El cries. She has eyes that only an adult should have, a knowing that she should not possess.

It all makes Steve a little emotional, so he slips inside.

He’s not exactly going hysterical in the way that his mom might. It’s something adjacent to that. It’s like that without all the yelling, but Steve can see the same fear in his eyes (which everyone always says are his mother’s, to a T). He runs a list in his brain, which feels like it’s moving faster than it should be allowed to. What is wrong with him? Nothing is really going poorly. Billy is leaving, Steve is reminded, and Joyce and Will and El will be gone by next weekend too. It’s not like that hasn’t happened before, and doesn’t happen all the time with his parents. Steve gags up in the toilet. He looks in the mirror again. He’s pale as a sheet and his eyes are big and blown. He’s trembling. He backs up against the wall and closes his eyes.

“Steve?” someone calls out, and it’s Max, or El.

He stays quiet, but whoever it is, they’re wiggling the locked door knob. She gets a little closer to the door and whispers, “Steve, are you okay?”

Her feet are casting shadows into the bathroom, and Steve watches her hesitate, then walk slowly off. 

Then it’s Billy that’s knocking. Everyone must know now… whoever it was that knocked first must have told everyone that Steve was going ballistic in the bathroom. “Harrington?” Billy says while he knocks.

Steve busts out of the door and escapes to his room, not running but not exactly walking either, and Billy walks behind him, saying, “Hey. Come on. Steve.” Steve can’t really see right now, and he’s kinda half-hoping he trips and falls and passes out or something. Billy’s right behind him, and he won’t let Steve shut the door. He’s sticking his fingers in the gap. Steve’s definitely gonna throw up again.

“Come on, Steve,” Billy says, and he’s really fucking strong, and he’s pushing on the door, trying to wedge himself in. Steve must look crazy right now- Billy’s now halfway in the door and Steve’s backing against the door trying to shut it on him. It’s a moment of exceptional weakness that makes him step aside.

“What the fuck,” Billy whispers, puts himself deep into Steve’s room so he can’t be pushed out. He’s got a sneer on and a defensive stance. He’s looking Steve up and down. “What the _fuck_ is going on?”

Steve puts his arms out and works his jaw, trying to say something, but all of the sudden he’s crying. Like tears. He’s fucking _crying_. Billy looks really startled by this, steps back and trips on to the bed. He sits on the edge and rubs his knees. He looks at Steve through his eyelashes, and then away, and back again. These would be cues for nervousness if they didn’t belong to Billy. He makes it look easy.

Steve isn’t sobbing or anything, there’s just water falling down his cheeks, and a little stuttered breath now and then. Billy pats the bed next to him, so Steve walks over and sits. He picks at his thumbs and pulls on his shirt, feels like a kid in the principals office, if he had a crush on the principal and his mom was in a different country.

Not that Steve has a crush on Billy, it just makes sense in context, you know.

Billy’s hand hovers over Steve’s shoulder and lands down with an awkward pat. Steve winces at the touch. Billy looks uncharacteristically concerned, brows furrowed, lips pursed into a frown, eyes wide. He moves his hand over to Steve’s spine and rubs up and down along it, first with his palm and then just his fingers.

“Sorry,” Steve says, “I’m so fucking stupid—“

“Stop,” Billy says. “What happened?”

“I have no idea.”

“You don’t know… what made you upset?”

Steve nods.

“Do you want me to get them to leave?”

“No. No. I just was overwhelmed I think.”

Billy nods, and his shoulders lower like he understands. On the uptake of his hand, he keeps going, past Steve’s neck and up to his face. He holds Steve’s cheek, brushing away some tears with his thumb. Steve closes his eyes.

Robin busts in the door just then, Billy’s hand touching Steve’s face, Steve leaning into it. Billy and Steve both startle and pull away from each other.

“What—“ she says, “El took me aside and said something was wrong.”

Billy stands and rocks on his heels. Then he says, “I’m gonna go back downstairs,” and slides past her through the door.

Robin takes Billy’s spot on the bed, sits up criss-cross next to Steve.

“What. Was. That?” she whispers, leaning in towards Steve, conspiring at the door.

“I don’t fucking know,” Steve laughs. For a long time he was head over ass for Nancy, but those feelings dissolved a while ago. This isn’t like that. But it isn’t entirely unlike that either.

“ _Steve_ ,” Robin says, “Are you— Oh my god.”

“What?”

“You are blushing,” she pinches his cheek, “You are fucking _blushing_ , Harrington.”

“I’m not blushing. Seriously, I don’t— do that.”

“Get yourself a mirror, then, princess, cause you’re in for a surprise.” Robin’s laughing; she looks stupidly delighted by this. 

“I was crying—“

“I know the difference, okay? Sadly, I look at your face more than you do, so. I would know.”

“I’m not _blushing_ , Robin. Jesus.”

“Okay. Right. Anyway, why were you crying, again?”

Steve sighs. “I got overwhelmed all of the sudden, for like, no reason.”

Robin nods, the same face of understanding he got from Billy. “Happens to me but at night, which is ass because who can you call at one in the morning? I’m sorry, Steve.”

“Does anyone know besides El?”

“You mean downstairs? About you being upset? No, and I’m sure they won’t even notice if you clean up good and get your ass down there.” She leans up and wraps her arms around Steve’s neck, rests her head on his shoulder. He leans on her too.


	11. keg king

Nancy smiles at Steve when he walks downstairs. She’s perched up on the arm of a chair that Jonathan is sitting in. “There you are,” she says. The kids are all swimming in the pool, except for Dustin who is making an army of blow-up toys on the deck. Will just swings his feet in the water; he’s drawing over in the corner.

It’s not that Joyce isn’t cool, because Joyce is _very_ cool as far as mothers go, but she is obligated on some level to not allow her kids to do bad things, which is probably why she leaves mid-afternoon. Steve wants to tell her to just stay, because he can’t think of anyone else in Hawkins who was ever close to or kind to the Byers out of anything other than necessity, but she smiles and insists she will have more fun on her own anyway.

Robin slams down five shot glasses and leans on the table, addressing Billy, Nancy, Steve, and Jonathan. She says, “Okay. Who is going to stay sober enough to pull the kids out of the pool if they drown?”

Everyone looks at Billy, who touches his finger to his nose, and pours out a shot with the other.

“But he’s the lifeguard!” Nancy says. She’s sitting on Jonathan’s lap, which is something that would have bothered Steve a long time ago. Now he’s just bothered that he doesn’t care.

“Not anymore, princess,” Billy toasts to her and kicks back his shot.

“You’re still certified,” Nancy mumbles.

“Dustin can do it,” Steve says, and pours out a shot of his own.

“They’re all very capable swimmers,” Jonathan says.

Robin tops off the last shot glass and they all toast to that. 

It’s a unique turn of events that has Robin and Jonathan tag teaming a bong on the floor and sitting criss-cross towards each other, engaging in a heated discourse about film that Steve lost track of within a minute.

Nancy and Billy are sandwiching Steve on the couch, Billy’s thighs sticking to the leather, and to Steve’s. Steve surprises himself with a dirty fucking thought, so he pulls his leg away.

Nancy is giggling at Robin, who is waving her hands around and excitedly telling Jonathan that he’s wrong. Jonathan is laughing so hard he can barely defend himself.

“You guys gonna fuckin’ hog that thing?” Billy sags over his legs, his eyes all heavy and drunk, staring at the bong in Robin’s lap.

“Yes, Billy,” Robin says, but she’s sliding it over the coffee table to him.

“Ladies first,” Billy says, passes it down the line to Nancy.

“Oh, I’m good,” she giggles, “Drunk enough already.”

“Steve?” 

Steve has to think about it. He doesn’t love being high most of the time, but he’s really in the moment right now so he says, “Sure.”

Billy takes the bong anyway and packs the bowl. Steve watches him do it, laughing a little. Maybe he didn’t hear him properly. Billy lights it, pulls it out of the stem and inhales, holds. Sets the bong on the table and turns to Steve like he’s about to kiss him. It happens really fast. He’s blowing smoke in Steve’s mouth and Steve takes it, like a fucking bitch. Robin tries not to make a big deal about it over there, but she looks like she’s going to combust if she doesn’t open her mouth and gape at him.

Billy’s smirking when Steve looks over at him again, fidgeting the lighter around in his hand. “More?” he says. Steve clears his throat and nods.

Nancy is inebriated, can barely stand, but she’s like a hundred pounds soaking wet so it’s understandable. She shuffles off her day dress until she’s left in just in a swimsuit, and she’s yanking on Jonathan to go outside and get in the pool with her, so he goes. Robin looks around like she’s going to laugh, purses her lips to keep from smiling, and she’s saying _holy shit, Steve_ with her eyes, he can just tell. Then she gets up and tip-toes out the screen door after Jonathan and Nancy.

“Does that bother you?” Billy gestures towards the door, then uses the bottom of the lighter to pack the bowl again.

“What? Nancy and Jonathan. God, no.”

“Really?” Billy looks at Steve sideways.

“I haven’t cared in years. Not since like, before I worked at the mall.”

Billy sucks in through his teeth, “Jesus. It has been years. We’re old, Stevie.” He rips the bong and takes Steve by the cheek. Their lips touch, and he hesitates for a moment after Steve has inhaled all of it. When he pulls away, he’s smirking again. “You ever been shotgunned before?” he asks.

“Uh, yeah, five minutes ago,” Steve sinks back into the couch, and Billy slouches next to him.

Then Billy unsticks his thighs from the leather and lays them over the arm of the couch, and rests his head in Steve’s lap.

“White lighters are bad luck,” Billy mumbles, spinning the thing around on his finger.

“Oh, is that what did it? Man, I wish someone told me years ago. Maybe I wouldn’t be so fucked right now.”

Billy looks up at him, his eyes sort of distant and tired looking, really red in the sclera. Steve reaches down and puts his fingers in his hair. It’s soft, and it’s getting longer again, judging from the polaroid. Billy closes his eyes and hums. Steve’s not really sure that he’s sleeping until he starts breathing deep and rhythmic. It’s probably dinnertime, judging by the fact that the sun is getting lower and more pink in the sky, but Billy Hargrove is catnapping in Steve’s lap, so Steve is going to wait until one of the kids is absolutely dying of starvation before he moves him.

Dustin is the little asshole who comes in, makes a stink face and says, “Y’all are weird,” and then whines at Steve to get on with grilling the several thousand hot dogs. Steve waves at him to shut up and go outside, then tries to gently wake Billy. He resists, turns further into Steve’s lap and buries his face into Steve’s T-shirt. Steve sighs, carefully lifts him up, and wedges a pillow beneath his head.

Robin, Max, and El have apparently gone for a walk around the house, and Jonathan and Nancy are floating in the pool, arms around each other. The boys are playing pool volleyball, and Steve’s got the exceptionally monotonous job of grill attendee, like he’s some kind of dad.

Within an hour, everyone is splayed along the pool deck eating. Dustin is in a mood because he fought Lucas to get the ketchup first, only then it squirted ketchup water all over his bun. Steve decides he should probably go wake up Billy, or at the very least see if he wants to eat, but he isn’t on the couch anymore.

Steve checks the bathroom for him, but it’s empty. He meanders through the first floor, then makes his way up the stairs and finds his nightstand light on. Billy’s sleeping in his bed, just the top of his head peaking out from under the covers. Steve stands there for a while and tries to figure if he can work up the gumption to even go in right now. He’s sobered up considerably, so he’s not really drunk enough for this anymore. He decides the tail-end of his high will have to do, and he steps forward into his own room with a weird sense of intrusion.

“Billy,” Steve whispers, pull the covers back so he can shake him a bit. His skin is warm. “Billy.”

Billy groans and pulls Steve by the hand like he means to rip him into bed.

“Come on, I made food, everybody’s eating.”

Billy groans again, and his eyes flicker open, slow, and lazy. His hair is honey-colored in low light, and his skin is smooth and tanned. Steve is tempted by the little tugs Billy keeps making on his wrist.

Steve leans down and rests his chin on Billy’s arm and says, “Come on. We’ll sleep later.”

Billy huffs out at that, then shoves off the covers and stumbles grumpily from Steve’s bed. He rubs his eyes and stomps down the stairs.

“I thought you were the Keg King,” Steve says, “And here you are, sleeping at a party.”

“I _am_ the fucking Keg King. I’m getting my rest so I can ruin your life.”

Steve laughs, because Billy probably doesn’t know how true that fucking is.


	12. chicken fight

El and Mike need to be awful discreet, because if Hopper’s ghost has any inkling that Steve knows something and won’t put a stop to it, he’s going to be the next one getting poltergeisted. But if any of the kids are doing anything, say, illegal or immoral, Steve would have no clue, because they are startlingly good at keeping secrets. It’s no small thing that provided them with this skill and it makes Steve a little sad, because at least he is older… he can’t imagine dealing with all that at thirteen. It’s hard to look at Will sometimes, even though Steve knows he shouldn’t pity him. It’s not exactly that; it’s more akin to veneration and awe.

Steve’s backyard isn’t so scary with ten other people in it, and if anyone else is a little terrified, they don’t mention it. Somewhere along the line, Robin starts egging on Dustin that she would easily beat him in a game of chicken fight. Dustin becomes downright indignant and announces to everyone that they will be hosting a chicken tournament and they need to pick partners or _suffer the consequences_

“What’s chicken fight?” El leans over and whispers to Steve. It’s bizarre how she can look like an inquisitive toddler just as fast as a weathered adult.

“Oh— you grab a partner and get on their shoulders in the pool. Then you match up against another pair and the two people on top basically wrestle and try to get the other one to fall into the water.”

“Oh,” she furrows her eyebrows, “Will you be my partner?”

Steve, stupidly, looks at Billy, as if he was honestly hoping Billy might pick him to be on his shoulders, even though they would decimate everyone and it would be incredibly unfair. “Yeah, definitely,” he tells her.

Jonathan tells Nancy he’s going to stay back and take photos, and that he’s “good, thanks”. Will mirrors this except makes the excuse that he’s in the middle of a drawing he just picked up.

Billy and Robin are smacking their chests and hooting at everybody like frat brothers, and Nancy drags Mike with her, who begrudgingly tells her she isn’t very strong. She punches him in the arm and he grips it, and says, “Ouch! Nevermind, fuck.”

Dustin says it’s him and Max against Steve and El, so he helps El get up on his shoulders. She makes a menacing face at Max and they circle around one another in the water. Dustin’s talking shit. Nancy is running a list of potential fouls, including but not excluded to: scratching, biting, hair-pulling, and pinching.

“We’re going to ruin you,” Dustin says, a big, goofy smile on his face. 

Robin blows a whistle that she found and they charge at each other. It’s a close fight, and Steve is sure for some reason that they are going to lose, but El pulls through.

Max falls to the water with a splash, and when she comes back up her hair is pulled long and straight and dripping with water. She pouts for a second before she starts hollering and high fives El, who’s panting and grinning, perched up on Steve’s shoulders. Dustin kind of looks like he wants to push Max back underwater, but he can’t deny El’s celebration any longer and smiles while he wades out of the water.

“Damn, girl,” Steve says to El, and puts his hand up so she can high five him.

Mike and Nancy get in next and Mike says under his breath that he’s rooting for El, so Nancy smacks his head, but they are both laughing. El bares her teeth and holds her arms up at Nancy, and when Robin blows the whistle, she goes in hard. Nancy is giggling, and everyone on the deck is shouting for their favored team. El nearly falls and then, all of the sudden, she takes Nancy out. If Steve had neighbors they would definitely call the cops, because everyone is shouting and jumping around like they’re front row at the fuckin’ Superbowl.

El catches her breath again and puts her fists in the air victorious, but only after giving Nancy a good sportsman-like handshake. Billy and Robin get under the water and put their hands up behind their heads like sharks, and Steve giggles madly, wondering if they planned this or if they are both equally annoying. Robin climbs up on Billy’s shoulders, and her and El pretend to glare at one another, their smiles peaking through. Billy growls at Steve. Steve just shakes his head and hangs on tight to El’s legs. 

“I’m taking you out too, Harrington,” Billy whispers at him. He’s staring, he won’t break eye contact. It’s all Steve can do not to break out laughing.

“I bet you anything we’ll win,” Steve says.

“I’ll take you out anyway.”

Dustin blows the whistle and Robin and El get at it, and Steve can feel how strong Robin is from how much El rolls around on his shoulders. Billy’s put on this mean face, one that Steve has surely seen in another life. It’s the longest fight yet. Nancy is running around the pool with Lucas trying to get the best angle. El falls, but not even a second later, Robin is careening from Billy’s shoulders too, so there is a raucous screaming match about ties until El declares Robin the rightful winner.

It’s one of the single times Steve has been in his own pool since, well. Since everything. And he doesn’t even think about it until he is climbing up the stairs. Billy gives Steve a locker-room smack on the ass and says, “Good work, Harrington, but you’ve got to plant your feet.”

They shove away some furniture so they can roll out sleeping bags all over the floor. Dustin and Max nearly burn the house down making popcorn and they return with mountains of the stuff, drenched in butter, some with M&Ms. Robin’s got a hook-up from the video store, a guy who can get films that are still in the movies, so she pops on Labyrinth to a cacophony of hems and haws. She sighs, falls back on her pillow and says, “Bowie is such an icon.”

Steve leans over on Billy and says, “I wish you would get taken by the goblins.”

Billy leans closer, “I’m the Goblin King. Have you seen this hair?”

“Thought I was the one with the good hair.”

Max turns around and tells them to be quiet. 

Eventually, Nancy and Jonathan are drinking again, and they announce their retreat to the the guest bedroom. The kids are laying in a big pile of blankets. Mike pretends to vomit, and the others set the ambience with booing and shaking fists as Nancy and Jonathan walk off. 

Robin whispers, “So, does this mean I get the master bedroom or what?”

“I’ll fist fight you for it,” Billy says.

“I’ll kick you both out,” Steve says.

Billy ruffles Steve’s hair in a condescending way and says, “Don’t worry, Stevie, you can sleep in the master with me.”

Robin guffaws and gives Billy a kick. Steve falls asleep at some point before the end of the movie. When he wakes up, Mike and El are missing in action and half of the rest of the kids are snoring. Billy and Robin are missing too, so he goes up to his room and falls back asleep.

***

Steve wakes up with an arm around his stomach. There’s a warm light coming in through the curtains, dust flowing around in shafts. Billy’s next to him, but he’s taking up like two thirds of the damned bed. Steve moves slower than he’s ever moved before, and he turns so that he’s facing Billy, their hips squared, Billy’s heavy arm laying over Steve.

This is not friendship anymore. It can’t even be mistaken. Steve is frightened by this, but not enough that he’ll move away. Billy’s leaving in two days. Maybe Steve will ask him to not to.


	13. punctuation

The thing is, feeling this good makes Steve uneasy. A recklessness comes over him, some little voice that tells him to just go with it. He almost fucking died to a big flower with teeth and like a hundred little alien dogs, so he can be gay, and who gives a shit anyway.

Except, Steve realizes late on Tuesday afternoon that his uneasiness is warranted. Here’s how.

Billy begs for pancakes for breakfast Monday morning, so Steve spends an hour over the griddle until everyone stops asking for seconds (and thirds and fourths). Joyce shows up. Billy looks at Will’s drawings and says they’re _very cool_. Everything is really good. Robin keeps winking at him. He decides he’s going to ask Billy tonight if he’ll stay, ‘cause Steve can foot the rent at his place for now, it’s just really good having him around.

Then, Billy goes to dinner with Susan and Max again. And the kids don’t leave Steve alone long enough so he can pull Billy aside. And he’s chicken shit by the time Billy gets back, so they just watch Dragon Ball while Billy smokes weed. He sleeps with his arm over Steve again, his face tucked into his side.

Tuesday is weird. Billy does his cigarette and coffee routine. He brings the boombox in the bathroom so he can play metal while he showers. He comes out all combed up, and borrows one of Steve’s nice shirts without asking (which he’s fine with, at first). He’s acting different. His edges are more rigid, his brow a little more mean. Steve doesn’t ask.

He’d forgotten, to tell the truth, about cheap perfume girl. Except Steve has to answer the phone because it’s _his_ house, and Billy is sitting right there at the table watching him.

“Hiiii, Steve,” Vanessa says, like they’re best friends by proximity, because she is trying to fuck his ‘cousin’ or something.

“Hi.”

“Is Billy there?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, can I speak to him?”

“No, sorry,” Steve says. His face is hot. Billy’s staring at him, bagel half bitten in his mouth.

“Okay… okay. Well, um, if you could tell him I’m on my way over—“

“Sure thing,” Steve says, and hangs up the phone so hard it’s surprising the receiver stays fixed to the wall. “Vanessa is on her way over.”

“Okay,” Billy says, and finishes his bite.

“Okay,” Steve says, grabs his keys, toes on some sneakers, and goes to open the door.

“Where are you going?” Billy looks at him like he’s stupid.

“Out,” Steve says, and slams the screen door. It’s been sprinkling a little, coming down harder now. He can hear Billy open the door behind him.

“Harrington? What’s going on?” Billy says, but it’s combative, self-righteous in it’s tone.

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me, Billy?” Steve leans over to annunciate. The rain is dampening his hair against his head.

Billy just rolls his eyes, laughs.

“I’m not sticking around just to watch this,” Steve laughs back, but he’s not happy, nothing is funny. He puts his arms up, “I got to fucking go.”

“What is this? You have me to your place so, what? You can control me, tell me what to fucking do?”

Steve gasps, his eyes going wide, searching, and he’s laughing because _that_ is funny. “When— when have I controlled you? What? I’m just fucking getting in my car. How am I telling you what to do?”

“What the fuck is your problem, Harrington?”

“What is _your_ problem? What are you even talking about? Stop fucking calling me ‘Harrington’. You fucking slept in my bed the last three nights and—“

“Oh, rich. If you weren’t constantly freaking the fuck out—“

Steve’s crying, and the rain is cold on his face, and they run together down his shirt. “Spare me the bullshit. Honestly, Billy, do you just get off on fucking with people? You are a fucking psychopath.”

Billy’s standing on the stairs in Steve’s button-up, hair all gelled up and jewelry on for someone else. Which is fine, because he’s an honest-to-god psychopath and Steve doesn’t need it anyway. Billy’s walking towards Steve then, gets so close that they’re nose to nose, and he shoves him, not hard, but enough. Steve stumbles back. His breath is quickening. He wants to escape. He wants to deck Billy in the face. Wants to kiss him. Wants to call Vanessa back and tell her to shut the fuck up. Billy stares. 

“What do you want?” Billy asks.

“I want you to— to not fucking go.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to stay here.”

“Why?”

“Because, Jesus,” Steve throws his wet hair out of his face, “I don’t want you to leave.”

“You don’t tell me what to do,” Billy says through his teeth.

“I’m not telling you—” Steve hangs his head back, “I’m telling you how I fucking feel, Jesus. Fuck.”

“I’m going to go,” Billy says. His eyes are dark and empty. It’s seizes up inside of Steve.

“What are you gonna do, take her home and fuck her? In my fucking shirt?”

“Yeah, Steve. I am. What, are you fucking jealous? You want me to fuck you, Steve?” Billy says in the most conniving, mocking voice Steve’s probably ever heard.

Steve doesn’t really think about it until his fist connects with Billy’s nose, and Billy trips back and pulls blood from his face with his fingers. It’s terrible. It doesn’t satisfy him like he hoped. He’s still buzzing, embarrassed, angry. Now he feels like a dick.

“Go fuck yourself,” Steve says anyway, to punctuate it, right in Billy’s ear.

Steve peels off back into the house, shirt and hair completely soaked. He’s hurrying around the rooms looking for Billy’s things. He’s burning all over his body, wants to rip his skin off. He’s picking up pieces of Billy all over and Billy is chasing him, trying to rip these things from his hands. Steve stays silent. He shoves Billy’s cologne, toothbrush, hairbrush, shorts, into his bag. He finds more clothes in his room and Billy’s wallet and a pack of cigarettes. The newspaper is floating around in the bottom of the bag.

Billy’s chasing behind, frantic, saying, “What are you doing. What the fuck are you doing,” over and over. Steve keeps his mouth shut. Looks for these parts of Billy so he can scrub him away. God forbid Steve finds some evidence when this is all over. He might explode.

When he’s sure he’s got it all (swim trunks from the heater in the hallway too), he zips up the bag and throws it out on the porch. He won’t look at Billy even though Billy gets right up in his face. All he can say is, “Get the fuck out.”

Cheap perfume rides up as if on cue, her little car rolling down the muddy driveway, her headlights peaking through the rain.

Billy picks up his bag. He looks twice at Steve, and three times, Steve can tell from his periphery. All that matters is in the end, he gets in her fucking car.


	14. yeah

It’s Thursday, the day of Billy’s departure. Steve hasn’t heard jack shit from him since he left two days ago. He’s sure that he never will again. 

Honestly, Steve hasn’t left his room but to shower. He plays old cassettes that wound up in on his dresser sometime in the last week (and he’s not acknowledging who put them there, just that it wasn’t him). He’s not that hungry. His pillow is dented and stained. It’s how things are sometimes. He won’t tell anyone. He will sleep it away. Or drink. Or suffocate himself into something until the feeling dies. It doesn’t matter. 

Someone’s knocking heavily on the front door for a good while, maybe twenty minutes. There is no one parked in the yard. Then they come into the house, so they must know where the spare is, or Steve is about to get murdered, but either is fine.

“Steve?” Billy calls out downstairs. He calls out again. He climbs the stairs noisily and stops in front of Steve’s door. He knocks. Steve knows it’s coming but he still jumps.

“Steve,” Billy says, like a plea. “I know you’re in there. Come on— just. Ugh. I’m sorry. Just come out. ”He waits a minute. Steve won’t answer him. ”Steve. I gotta be at the airport in 30. You can’t just— you have to talk to me.”

 _Yes, I can_ , Steve thinks, _no, I don’t._

“I’m gonna sit by the door,” Billy says, and he slumps against the wall outside, “But I’ve gotta go, so please fucking come out.”

Steve moves quietly, lays under his covers, and pulls them up to his chin. He’s biting back tears.

“Okay, well. If you’re awake, I want to say that _I’m sorry_ —“ Billy says it slow, like he’s hurting to utter the words, ”—that we fought. And I said something that made you want to punch me in the face.” He waits. “Jesus, Steve, come on.” He waits. “Just come say goodbye. Punch me in the face again.”

Steve whips the covers off and lays there. It’s a chore to put his feet on the floor, to then walk to the doorway, twist the lock, and open it. Billy shuffles up to his feet and shoves through the door, and pulls Steve up into his arms. Steve only catches a glimpse of his swollen nose, the blue bruise on the inside of his eye.

Steve keeps his arms down at his sides. He’s pressing his face into Billy’s shirt, and Billy is rubbing the nape of his neck, the top of his spine.

“Did you fuck her?” Steve asks, muffled into Billy’s collar. He doesn’t want to know, doesn’t even want to ask in the first place.

Billy sighs, and his hands pause. “Yeah.”

Steve pulls away, shoves. “Go,” he says. He doesn’t mean it, but he says it.

Billy is back, familiar, in his eyes, and they shut and stay closed for a moment. Then he nods, and steps away. ”I’ll call you when I get home.” He goes back down the stairs.

Someone’s car is rumbling outside. Steve stands there until he hears the car door slam shut, and the engine taper off down the driveway.


	15. time zones

Steve

Just got home. I’m gonna call you in a minute but I’m also not made of money and can’t afford the long distance til I get a steady job again, so we still need the snail mail.

Thank you for having me at your place and for letting me bum rides and all that. You’re really good with all the little shits. Eleven freaks me out pretty bad, I’m always sweating around her because she can see into my head. I don’t have a whole lot to hide but some things are private. I hope she hasn’t said anything to anyone.

We’re going to have to talk about what happened but maybe we can talk about it on the phone instead. I’m calling you now. You know because you’re getting this later, but whatever. 

Billy

***

Billy

I’m putting in a bunch of stamps and if I need to I’ll wire you some money too. I don’t want to have to talk about it. Sorry I hung up. I wish never brought it up. Should’ve just shut my mouth. But hell, what can I do now. 

Nothing is different. Pretend it didn’t happen. 

Steve

P.S. El doesn’t have her old powers. You should have just asked.

***

Nothing is different? If that’s how you really feel about it then whatever. I won’t press it. I just wanted to hear your side.

***

Steve

Sorry about my last letter. Can you pick up my calls? I feel like your parents are going to get home and wonder what crazy motherfucker is leaving you 50 voice messages a day.

I know you said you don’t want to bring it up again but we have to. I don’t want to either, Jesus. But I can’t act like it didn’t happen.

I’m working at this diner, and I’m getting a little fat now because I’m eating pancakes for every meal. I work on the cooking line and mainly do the bacon and sausage. I always smell like processed meat. Also I bought these new kicks and it rained THE DAY I walked out with them. I scrubbed them with toothpaste and an old brush, but the suede is ruined already. You make better pancakes than the guy here who’s been doing it for forty years, but I’d end up dead in an alley if I made any suggestions.

I still have all your letters, if it matters, and I keep the fuckin’ polaroid in my wallet. I think you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. Burn this as soon as you read it and forget I ever said that, but I seriously need you to know. I’m worried about you. If I didn’t have Max in my ear swearing you were okay I’d be in Hawkins right now knocking on your door.

Billy

***

Billy

I’ve written a couple letters and haven’t sent them. So I wasn’t ignoring you all the way. I listen to the answering machine and stuff. I know it’s been a few weeks and it’s not cool to just go dark. I kind of wish you just showed up. I feel like everything I say has an undertone now. Like I have a pathetic crush on you and like I can’t be nice without it being weird. I don’t know how to explain it. Why would you be upset that I said nothing is different? I guess the worst part is that I don’t understand.

You leaving really messed me right up, I won’t lie. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t want you to feel bad. I keep your polaroid in my wallet too. 

Steve

***

Steve

Thank you for writing back. The mailman looks at me crazy because I’m always grabbing the mail straight from his hands and I look through it before I even get off the stoop. 

It’s not pathetic, I hate that you keep using that word. I know I started it but I’m going to rip my hair out if you say it again. You can be however you want towards me and it won’t be weird. Please don’t worry about it. I feel so bad. The longer that goes by the worse I feel. I haven’t called in a while because I feel like I shouldn’t, but I do want to. I work from 12pm to 11pm most days, you can call me any time other than that. That’s 2pm and 1am for you though… time zones.

I panicked. I just panicked and I left. I’m gonna come back eventually though and I want to be cool with you when I do. Otherwise I’m just gonna show up with a boombox and sing to you in the rain

Billy

***

Billy

Sorry again for not responding. The weather is so shitty right now. It got cold the day after you left and I haven’t gotten out of a sweatshirt since. The house is huge and my dad is always on me about the gas bill so I’m suffering and laying under 30 blankets all the time. They’re coming home next week, and lucky me, they’re leaving second week of September. It’s like I don’t have parents.

I’m probably going to regret saying this, but I hate that you are being so nice and saying things like you’re going to hold a boombox out my window. I think you don’t realize you’re giving me the wrong idea. It makes it harder for me to write back. I respect you and how you feel but I gotta respect me too, God knows no one else will

Steve

***

Steve

I’m coming back to Hawkins in early October for Max’s birthday. I’m surprising her again, so don’t tell her, but I doubt she’ll care as much this time ha ha. I can’t believe it’s already been a month since I was there last. 

I’m telling you this because I want to see you, but really don’t want to make you upset. I need to figure myself out I guess. I don’t really know how to give a shit about other people, I’m either totally overbearing or completely off. I don’t want to give you the wrong idea, but I don’t know what idea I want to give you. I get kind of messed up when I think about it and I end up drunk.

Billy

***

Billy

Robin might actually stab you when you get here. I guess she heard from Max that I wasn’t answering you and she put two and two together. I’m glad someone knows but it was hard to tell her. I can’t believe I said it. Of course we laughed about it because she was so worried when she came out to me… and a little over a year later, here we are.

I want to see you, but don’t be mad if it’s not for long. I still don’t know how to handle it. It’s like it only gets worse.

Steve

***

Steve

Of course Max said something. I like Robin, too. Shit.

I talked about it to someone too. I talked about you like you were a girl and that helped me to get it. I mean, by the end of it, the guy I was bullshitting with thought I was the biggest fucking idiot on planet earth. A girl and I send letters to each other, she buys my plane ticket, I stay at her house, then I tell her I’m gonna fuck some random at the motel down the road and and I leave cause she gets mad. 

I can’t believe I did that to you. I had to call out of work the next day cause I was so mad at myself. I went for a run in the mountains (it was all foggy at the top but I could see down into LA a pretty good distance, wish I had a decent camera). I cried for the first time for real. I’ve shed tears and stuff but I really cried. I’m not saying that so you feel bad. I’m saying it because that’s really out of character for me.

I wasn’t making the connection. I think I said this last time but I need to figure myself out. 

Billy

***

Billy

I cry literally all of the time, so you’re making me feel like a pussy. I cry even if I don’t feel that bad. 

You forgot a part of that story too. I don’t mean to rub salt in the wound, but it’s important that you know where I’m coming from if we can be cool again.

You were flirting with me the whole time you were here. I thought it was just your personality, but I’ve made a mental list of like ten things no sane person would say to their ‘bro’. You slept in my bed. I’ve probably repressed the rest. I feel so fucking weird standing up for myself, but I also feel like I’ve got nothing to lose.

Steve

***

Steve

You’re probably right. I can think of a few things. I’m sorry Steve. I don’t know what else to say.

Billy


	16. ferris wheel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: homophobic language

Hawkins seemed like a shithole when the best Billy had was California, where somewhere in the sand and waves he lost his mother. There was an ethereal appeal ever imposed on the beach then, like he might just stumble across her standing there, swinging her arms, her dress blowing in the wind. He would not find her here in the hundreds of corn fields and ranges. She would not be in the piney woods. 

When Billy stopped looking for his mother, he grew to love Oregon. The heat isn’t so heavy there, and the air is fresh and fragrant. The landscape is beautiful. The mosquitos breed through less of the year, and thank God for that. His Aunt yelled at him, told him not to chase his mother, and instead of denying it like he should’ve, he said, “No one tells me what to do.”

Indiana is flatter, the woods are less dense, and at least in Hawkins, it’s more suburban than his Aunt’s place, but it’s really not so bad. And he knows to avoid the roads that smell like shit, so.

Being in his old room is uncomfortable. His bed is stiff and doesn’t smell like him anymore. There’s a good layer of dust over everything, and Susan had put all of his things in the closet so it could be a guest room. Billy is certainly a guest.

Susan is fine enough, but Billy would be lying if he said he didn’t resent her. Neil laid his hands on Max _once_ and that was the line? But not with Billy, not the countless times she watched Neil kick, punch, berate him. She must feel bad, because she waits on him like he’s the President. Max looks at him like he cured cancer.

Steve doesn’t do either of those things. Billy has been in Hawkins for six hours, and he keeps looking at the phone. He still has a little letter tucked in his pocket with the landline on it, but he’s memorized the number from all the calling. He’s embarrassed about that, thinks maybe he should lay off a little and show Steve that he capable of giving him space, or that he doesn’t care that much. Billy does care, a lot, and he doesn’t fucking like it.

Max comes to him in his room and says, “You know… Don’t get mad. But if you like Steve, you shouldn’t worry.” She takes a deep breath. She’s holding her shoulders like Billy might lunge at her.

Billy looks out the window.

“I— I like girls sometimes. It’s not a big deal,” Max says. “You shouldn’t be mad at him because you like him. It’s stupid, Billy.”

Billy looks at his closet door, the crack in it from the time Neil threw him against it. 

“I don’t. I’m not a faggot,” he says.

Something steely comes through her eyes, an anger in her voice, “Fine. Then you at least owe Steve an apology, because we all saw you lead him on.” She slams the door when she goes.

***

If Susan’s house is outside of town, then Steve’s house is outside of that. There is a mist hanging over the roads, and it’s probably tough to see Billy walking on the shoulder, so he meanders more into the woods. His sneakers squeak on the wet leaves. It’s a little unnerving, if he’s honest. It’s that strange time of day where it isn’t exactly light anymore, but there’s still some pervading the woods, directionless and dim.

By the time he gets to Steve’s driveway, it’s dark. He warms his hands with his breath and shoves them into his coat pockets. It’s mid-October, and it feels like it. The light in Steve’s room is on. It’s just the bimmer in the driveway, no bikes, nothing else. This house is a beacon in the center of places Billy wants to run from. He’s not sure like he’s allowed to feel that. That’s the weird thing about feelings: they don’t ask permission.

His nose is cold, his hair all whacked from the humidity, and his stomach is turning over and over on itself. His footfalls are loud on the wooden porch. The screen door screeches when he opens it, and it rests against his back. He doesn’t even have to knock, because Steve walks around the corner into the kitchen, and stops.

He’s wearing pajamas, a T-shirt and sweatpants- Billy wore those once- and his hair is flat on one side, tampered down like he was just laying on it. His big eyes are looking straight at Billy. His mouth is open, just a little. His shoulders are lean and wide, and he’s tall and sort of lithe, pretty in a boyish way, except for the stubble that’s shading his mouth and jaw. Billy likes these things about him. It doesn’t have mean that he _likes_ him, only because Billy never _likes_ anyone.

Steve opens the door and wedges himself in it, not extending the invitation. “You didn’t even call,” he says.

Billy gazes down. “Sorry.”

Steve looks inside, and back at Billy, then rolls his eyes and parts from the door. He doesn’t say “come in,” just leaves the space for Billy to step into.

Billy takes his shoes off, tosses his coat on a chair. Steve leans against the counter and stares at the toaster across the way. He looks pissed. He’s all stiff and dark in the eyes.

Billy walks over and stands in front of the toaster, so Steve stares at him instead, mouth pulled mean. Billy folds his hands over his belt, picks at some of the callouses. “I owe you an apology.”

“You apologized already.”

“Not in person. Not even over the phone.”

Steve just glares.

“I’m here to tell you that I’m sorry. I feel like shit. Still, Steve. Like months later.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed with that? So do I.”

Billy feels like he’s bargaining now. What’s the best he can do? Can he spare his dignity and walk out of here with Steve somewhat on his side again? Does he even deserve that? Billy steps towards him, and Steve reacts, his neck stiffening, his face turning away. “Let me fix it,” Billy says.

“Start by not fucking showing up here unannounced, like you can just come in and shake me up and leave like it’s nothing.”

“I was afraid you would tell me not to come.”

“And what if I did? Would you listen? Don’t you think I have a right to tell you no?”

And little wave of heat flashes over Billy’s face. He feels bogus, like a piece of trash, a total idiot. He didn’t even think of it. “I needed to get out of Susan’s place ‘cause—“

“Go hang out with some fucking girl, then. Don’t use me as a way to fill in the fucking vacation itinerary.”

Billy sags. His arms feel really fucking heavy. His chest hurts. He’s a piece of shit. He’s gonna keep his mouth shut now, because everything that comes out feels selfish and wrong. He ought to go.

“How did you get here, anyway?” Steves eyes sort of flicker over, and then away again.

“I walked.”

“From… from Susan’s?”

Billy nods.

“Why’d you need to get out of there?”

“I kept, like. Looking at the phone. Thinking, Jesus, I want to call Steve. Wonder what Steve’s up to. Wonder if he’s home. Max came in and said some shit. I got real upset. I went out for a cigarette and I kept going.”

Steve folds his arms across his chest. Billy loves his hands, all long and sinewy, looking like he could play a mean piece on the piano. He noticed this first when he was watching Steve make breakfast. He wonders if Steve has ever caught him staring.

Steve squints, “What did Max say?”

“We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“She said,” Billy sighs, “She said that everyone knows I was leading you on, and that I’m a douchebag and— and I owe you a serious apology. It’s not like I didn’t know that. I just… When I got on the plane I had this big idea that you would be so stoked on seeing me that you wouldn’t care. Like, it would be okay.”

“How do you define ‘okay’?” Steve looks like he’s scolding him, and Billy wants to get punched again.

“I don’t know, just. Whatever was going on before I…” Billy trails off, can’t say it.

“Before you fucked that girl. In my shirt, at the motel. A detail I didn’t need, but know nonetheless.” Steve smiles like he’s irritated. “She’s cute. Don’t blame you. Why don’t you just have her here next time? I’ll sit and watch, like a fucking cuckold.”

“She doesn’t know I’m in town, and if she finds out, she can eat shit. It won’t happen again, Steve.”

“And what was going on before was that I was just a fuckin’ mouth breather that you used for rides and a place to stay, and—“

“That’s not fucking true,” Billy is shaking, and he raised his voice a little but it was just to drive home the point.

“You said it yourself, I just want to control you, right, Billy?” Steve is spiraling, his eyes brimming with tears, anger running over his body like lightning. He keeps rambling. Billy can’t even hear him anymore.

Billy steps forward, reaches his arms out and stills Steve’s, pins them down and wraps his arms around him. He grabs the back of Steve’s head and presses it against the side of his face. Billy can smell his shampoo. A thousand things rush into the part of the mind that remembers, a little assembly line of moments attached to that smell, dripping agony into his skull.

What Steve is doing, Billy has done a thousand times. Some girl gets clingy, he finds some reason to brush her off. If he has to make a display like this, make ‘em feel really bad so they leave him alone, well, that’s what he does. Except Steve has a good reason. And Billy feels really, really bad. He is never the one who’s chasing, or bargaining, or apologizing.

Steve is clutching onto Billy’s back. It’s easier for Billy to articulate on paper. When something comes out of his mouth, he’s got to sound tough, and not vulnerable, and he’s got to put on a tone that’s a little carefree and charming. He walks a tightrope. Wherever Neil is, he still manages to shout in Billy’s ear across space and time.

“Come on,” Billy says, tugs on Steve’s sides to pull him towards the living room. Billy wants to be in Steve’s bed. It’s no more complex than that.

“I reserve the right to kick you the fuck out,” Steve tells him, his hand in Billy’s, leading him up the stairs.

“Yes, sir,” Billy says.

Billy’s buzzing, a little out of breath, he’s lost his cool, but he won’t show it. Steve’s room is exactly the way he remembers, little shifts in laundry sent awry and the warm light on the nightstand and the big mountain of down comforter shoved about on his bed. It smells like Steve.

Steve sits up by his pillows, and Billy gets on the edge of the bed, rests his face in his hands. After a while, he leans over and lays in Steve’s lap. Steve moves his legs so Billy can get comfortable, puts his long fingers on Billy’s forehead. Billy shuts his eyes and lets out an exhale he’s been holding for, like, three months. Steve’s breath is suppressed, measured. Billy’s eyes go wet, making little spots on Steve’s green t-shirt. He doesn’t know why that makes him feel safe, but it does. 

“I fucked up bad,” Billy mumbles, after a while.

“Yeah, you did.”

“How can I fix it?”

“I don’t—“ Steve voice catches, “I don’t know.”

Billy sits up on his knees. He takes Steve’s legs and kind of wedges himself underneath, so Steve’s sitting on his thighs. Steve covers his face with his arms, leaning limp against his headboard.

“Stevie,” Billy whispers. He pries on Steve’s arms, wants to see his face. Steve drops them and looks up through his eyelashes.

Billy gets real close. He has before, but never with so much intent. Steve’s brown eyes are big and sort of solemn, and gets up on his elbows, so him and Billy are an inch from touching noses. Billy stays there, the fall of breath exchanged on their skin, and tangles his hand up Steve’s shirt, where he’s warm and satin-soft. He was never scared to kiss a girl, not a single fucking time, but he’s got the heebie-jeebies, or _something_. Whatever it is, it’s skittering little goosebumps all over his skin. 

Steve leans up and presses his lips to Billy’s, and Billy’s quick to act, grabbing his neck, kissing him back. It doesn’t feel wrong. It feels like a good ferris wheel when you’re at the top, and the operator starts pushing you forward again. He’s not going to stop until Steve tells him to.


	17. king of idiots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I’ve been writing this fic without posting and then I hated how it ended. I realized I have a lot more to say in this story and I think this version of Steve and Billy deserves more time before it can end in a satisfying way. I’m almost unhappy with previous decisions I made but we’re gonna ride this out haha. Here’s a short chapter with an awkward POV switch in the middle. Hopefully it can hold y’all over until I post the next one, which is a big honkin’ thing

Steve doesn’t tell Billy to stop.

It goes without saying, but Billy’s never been with a guy before. Then Steve grinds his ass on Billy’s lap while they make out and Billy goes a little ballistic. Steve’s pulling his hair. He’s pushing Billy’s buttons.

Billy bites Steve’s bottom lip, and when he pulls back, they’re all wet and pink. Steve is breathing fast and desperate and even _that’s_ hot. He’s hard in his sweatpants, and it’s pressing on Billy’s stomach, making him a little weak, a bit light-headed. _Steve_ , he thinks, or says, it bleeds together. _Steve_.

He reaches for Steve’s waistband, but Steve smacks his hand and says, “Take me on a real date, Hargrove.”

Billy nods and kisses Steve again. Then he rolls over and leaves his arm across Steve’s stomach, watches his chest rise and fall slower and slower, the smile on his lips fade.

“Where do you wanna go? We can go to the movies, or we can just watch something here,” Billy says, “I know this girl who knows this guy who can get shit that’s still playing.”

Steve giggles, “I work at the video store now, so you actually know two people who know that guy.”

“You got a job?”

“Don’t act so surprised, Billy.”

“No— no. Sorry. Why don’t we go to the beach?” Billy says, and it’s meant to be a joke but it comes out earnest. He wants to see Steve in the ocean.

“Right, well Hawkins has this quarry. And we can go there, because it’s way more impressive. And you can get free diseases in there too.”

“Tetanus on the first date? I’m a lucky guy.”

“Was thinking MRSA. More romantic.”

Billy buries his face into Steve’s neck. He should apologize to Max.

“I’m still upset,” Steve whispers.

“I would be too,” Billy says against his skin. He doesn’t recognize his own voice.

Speaking of, Steve uses his voice like a blanket, and Billy uses his voice like a weapon. Billy has an inkling they’re learning a bit from each other. Is that what happens when you have a friend? The barriers blur, and you start becoming the same, like a fleshy Venn diagram. Billy wants to be like Steve, maybe learn how to make pancakes from scratch.

“It’s been three months since… all this happened,” Steve says. “So, I shouldn’t be upset, right? And you were only here for like five days. That’s what messes me up. Why do I even care?”

Billy pulls away and lays on his pillow, and Steve feels a little like he’s done something wrong. There are glow-in-the-dark stars tacked onto Steve’s ceiling, and Billy’s staring at them.

“I didn’t—“ Billy says, then shuts his mouth. “Look, I didn’t think I felt anything about you. Honestly. That’s why I did that, that’s why I— got with her. I didn’t realize until after when I still felt bad about it.” Every word comes out robotic, unpracticed. It’s evident that he doesn’t talk about _feeling things_ very much.

“What was with all the—“ Steve gestures with his hands, ” _Touching_ and stuff.”

Billy shrugs. “I’m used to people crushing on me. I didn’t think anything of it. I never crush back. I set targets, I move on.”

Steve’s body retaliates, and he sits up quickly, weightiness settling in his belly. “So why are you here? How is this any different?”

“I don’t know,” Billy says to the glow-in-the-dark stars, “I got home and felt like a douche, and it didn’t go away.” He takes breaks between sentences. ”Even when I was with that girl, I kept thinking about you punching me in the face. And I thought to myself, I’m in bed with this girl, why am I thinking about getting punched by Steve Harrington? It wasn’t just that, either.”

“What else?” Steve mumbles. It would just help to know, is all, because he’s so unsure about everything right now.

Billy finally looks up at Steve, grimacing like saying any of it would be the biggest discomfort in the world, but he does anyway. “I was thinking about… how much it sucked to sleep by myself. And… that I felt bad that you were by yourself too. 

Steve runs his fingers through his hair in a rushed, frustrated way. He was about to get in the shower before Billy showed up, and he’s still hankering for one, so he says, “I’ll be back,” and slams his bedroom door.

Steve scrubs his face and keeps turning up the hot water until his skin is flaming red and hot to the touch. A couple things are happening in Steve’s head. He’s sad, sure. But happy to see Billy. And confused. And he’s also still kind of horny from making out with Billy, and each time Steve remembers he gets worked up, so he rubs one out in the shower and forgets to shampoo his hair.

He wraps a towel around his waist and braces himself. The steam in the bathroom floods the hallway; the air is probably ten degrees colder. Billy is standing there in Steve’s room, his back to the door, looking out at the front yard. Steve considered the possibility that Billy might leave in the thirty minutes he was in the shower. It was a quiet offering of escape. The air that’s left between them is dense, too quiet. 

Steve has a lot of questions he doesn’t feel like asking or even knowing the answer to, but unless they suspend themselves in this single moment, real life will creep in and compromise everything. Steve’s going to start having trust issues one way or another, so he ought to get things straight now. Really, he ought to scare Billy into leaving before he does it on his own accord, and it hurts more because they’ve dug themselves deeper into something. He throws his towel on the floor. Billy’s seen him naked before in the showers after basketball. So he shouldn’t be such a fucking baby. 

It helps that Billy is facing away from him. Steve hides behind his closet door and pulls out some shorts and a T-shirt. Billy is looking over his shoulder. Steve carries his clothes to the edge of his bed, and shakes out his shorts so he can step into them. Billy stares the way he always does and for once, Steve musters up enough guts to maintain the eye contact. He watches Billy swallow, looking Steve up and down.

By the time Steve’s got his shorts on, Billy is rounding the bed. When Steve reaches for his T-shirt, Billy is stilling his wrist with a rough hand.

“It was five days,” Billy says, “Sure. That sounds ridiculous when you put it like that.” His voice is quiet and rasped, some indiscernible emotion coming through. ”We wrote to each other for months. I slept in your bed. It wasn’t _just five days_.”

Steve rips his wrist away, “And you still fucked some girl. You spent less time with her than you did with me, and you fucked her, so.” Steve’s not exactly sure what he’s getting at. He wants Billy to kiss him again, to stay the night, to beg for Steve’s trust or something. And here he is being rude and pushing him away to make some point. Steve is the King of Idiots.

When Billy puts his hand on Steve again, it’s soft, and it’s warm. His eyes hang heavy, and he’s looking at Steve’s lips when he says, “I’m sorry,” for the second time. He tugs on Steve’s arms, pulling them around his waist. Steve didn’t manage to get his T-shirt on, and Billy is a siren with the raspy voice of a 19-year-old boy. Steve’s waiting for Billy’s mouth to gape open and swallow him whole.

That doesn’t happen, but Billy kisses him like that’s something he has the capacity to do. His lips are soft and wet and his mustache kind of tickles. He licks Steve’s tongue, the line of his jaw, the underside of his earlobe. He’s stepping into Steve’s legs to coax him backwards, and they bump into the end table before Billy gets him against the wall. Steve can hear his blood pumping inside of his ears, and the little breathy moans coming off his lips without much permission until Billy’s kissing him again.

Billy kisses Steve a last time, then he says, “I’m taking you on a date tomorrow,” and steps away. Steve doesn’t realize how much he was leaning on Billy’s knee until he’s taken with his own weight. He sways against the wall.

“You can sleep over,” Steve says, his voice more wrecked than it has any right to be. He makes a quick addendum, because he sounds too desperate, “But you’re sleeping in the guest room.”

“How generous of you,” Billy says with a wolf-like smile, “Hey, mind if I make something to eat? I missed dinner at Susan’s.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Steve says, shoving by Billy to grab his shirt.


	18. fifty-one dogs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally nothing about Steve’s mom in this story is a personal headcanon... all of it comes from the fic Under The Covers by ToAStranger wherein Mrs. Harrington is a manic, hopped-up wine-mom who is also very Italian. Idk why but the thing stuck with me so hard that I believe it’s canon and can’t actually fathom Steve having a different mom. Stop reading my fic and go read theirs because they are better. Bye
> 
> also: tw: discussing homophobia, being out, homophobic slur

Steve is having trouble with the hot, mean boy that’s haunting around his house and eating hot dogs _raw_ like some kind of cretin. And that would be bearable, but he’s doing it in his underwear. _Only_ underwear.

There’s layers to this debacle. Steve is having a second sexual awakening. Somewhere Steve went dormant since, well, there were shadow monsters crawling around and that made it pretty hard to get off. But Billy is fucking hot. And Steve is really, really repressed. It’s too much when he thinks about _liking_ Billy, too.

Billy keeps telling Steve he’s pretty and making horrible, terrible comments about Steve’s hands. Steve wants to say, “Hey, Billy, when I jerk off I think about your thighs, exclusively.” Or, “Yeah, I’ll wrap my hands around your throat.” Except Steve just keeps his mouth shut in a tight line, because he’s trying to prove a point. Mostly to himself.

But the other part is that Billy makes Steve weak in the legs, like after you get off a boat and onto solid land. And Steve is obsessed with certain mannerisms he possesses (is it still called an oral fixation when it’s someone else’s mouth?). There was a time when Nancy Wheeler’s legs in a dress did him in, or the way she went serious in her eyes when she was considering something. He feels that way again, about Billy. It’s not just the physical things; he’s slipping into bad territory. He likes the way that Billy _feels_ about things, cares about his _opinions_. That’s not something Steve signed up for.

Steve is a hopeless romantic. Emphasis on hopeless, because he’s kind of shit at being romantic. There’s no forgetting how long he loved Nancy after she was already in the sack with Johnathan. Or the fact that he was seriously into Robin because she was only slightly nice to him and they had shared trauma. 

Steve was testing the whole situation just a few weeks ago. He got a hand job in the parking lot from this kid who started hanging around the video store not long after Steve was hired. His name was something like Jacob or John, and he was cute and blonde with an ill-concealed crush. It was in the front seat of maybe-Jacob’s truck. It was sloppy and maybe-Jacob was a bad kisser. Steve’s been scared a little shitless about him running his mouth since, and it’s _not great_ that he knows where Steve works. But Steve left the scenario knowing exactly what he sought out to find.

Steve does like guys. Steve prefers Billy. Billy is still an asshole. Steve knows how to pick them.

“So, the video store, huh?” Billy says. It’s eerie, but he does this a lot, picks up on subtle frequencies that must be radiating out of Steve’s head.

“Yeah. Robin said I had to get out of bed and stop moping. It’s like fifteen hours a week.”

“How long have you been there?”

“Since about three weeks after you left,” (it’s been a measure of Steve’s life since, which is probably melodramatic), ”How’s the diner?”

“Meh. Fine. It’s probably a front for the mob. Big Italian family. Mama Mia Pizzeria,” Billy says, sporting a terrible Italian accent.

“I’m half-Italian, so I’m legally obligated to not laugh at that.”

“Your mom is Italian,” Billy says, but it’s not a question.

“Yeah,” Steve nods slowly.

“Guessed, from the pictures. There’s no way your dad is,” Billy says, very casually, and turns back to the TV.

Steve’s dad is fair-haired and blue-eyed, and his mom looks like Sophia Loren. There’s no mistaking it, it’s just funny that Billy even noticed. Steve misses his mother and the weird way she occupies space in the house. Steve tiptoes around her, lest wake one of her incessant requests that Steve _please_ take this painting down and move it over a foot and a half, because it is disrupting the feng shui. She talks to him with her silk robe tied tight around her waist, and her giant wine glass sloshing around in her manicured hand. It’s no big deal. Steve will get the ladder. 

This place feels like it’s Steve’s house now, since his mother is holed up in the Swiss Alps and his father is flying back and forth from “career-defining” meetings in New York. Steve has long since forgotten how he will have to remake the place when they are due to come home, because he doesn’t remember the way it looked. When Steve told his father about the video store job, he laughed, and not in a kind way.

Steve realizes he’s misplaced his anger when Billy gives him a strange look and says, “What?”

Steve shakes himself out and scrubs the scowl off his face. “My mom. Miss her.”

Billy looks stupidly down at the coffee table and doesn’t say anything. He puts the flat of his palm across Steve’s neck. Steve glances over at Billy, and genuinely doesn’t know if he’s seen a better bone structure in his sad life. After a pause, he kisses the soft part of Billy’s neck, underneath his jaw, listens to his breath give. Steve knows that he has changed a lot since Billy left, and he wonders if it shows.

Steve hasn’t gotten rid of the second guessing, which is something he still needs to work on. Should he have told Billy to go? Is Billy even serious about this date? The sledgehammer is the fact that Billy lives in fucking _California_. That notion comes slamming down periodically, so hard that it actually makes Steve flinch.

Steve is great at ignoring obvious realities in favor of his sanity.

“Stop,” Billy says quietly, leaning onto Steve’s mouth, “Or we’re not making it to this date.”

Steve pulls away and, despite himself, smiles like a fool.

Billy is true to his word and sleeps in the guest bedroom, but it doesn’t stop him from crawling into Steve’s bed at dawn, his curly hair all mussed up, no shirt on. For the sake of consistency, Steve pretends to object, though Billy is already snoring and misses the whole display.

“I’m still mad,” Steve says into the warm skin on Billy’s shoulder.

Billy does his coffee and cigarette ritual, borrowing one of Steve’s sweatshirts to brace himself for the October chill. Max calls shortly after they eat and tells Steve that she is sincerely sorry, but before Steve can ask what for, Robin is calling.

“Hey, um, what the fuck?” is the first thing she says.

“Hello, Robin, great to talk to you, how are you?”

“Steve. Seriously, oh my god. I didn’t cry to Billy Ocean with you over several gallons of ice cream so you could hang out with this dick again.”

“You are so charming,” Steve says.

“I’m gonna be real charming if I ever have to see that slimy bastard again.” Robin’s mom is shouting in the background about cussing.

“I’m still mad, trust me.”

“Yeah, Steve, sounds like you’re really handing it to him.”

“I— look. Yeah. I don’t know. We didn’t hang out that much. He didn’t realize how I felt and then—“

“Steve! You’re not defending him right now. You are not.”

“No, I’m just saying, it would be different if I told him what was up,” Steve mumbles, looking out the window at Billy, who’s got his hair up in one of his mother’s scrunchies.

“You did,” Robin says, and then she slams a door, probably dragging the phone around the corner into her bathroom for privacy, “You said you told him right before he left.”

“Yeah,” Steve remembers. “Yeah.”

“ _Yeah_ , so tell him to go fuck himself. Even Max thinks he’s a piece of shit for that. Seriously, I’m gonna call animal services to come pick him up.”

“Don’t,” Steve laughs, “Don’t do that.”

“Just— be careful. Can you be careful? I don’t want you to feel that way again. I don’t trust him.”

“I don’t either,” Steve admits. Billy comes through the door then, taking in the smell of cigarettes with him and the fresh morning air. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll kill him. Okay? Seriously. I will.”

Steve laughs again, “Okay. I will keep that in mind.”

“I love you, dude. Don’t be stupid,” Robin says.

“Can’t be helped. Love you too,” Steve says, and slots the phone in the receiver. “Robin,” Steve tells Billy, who’s got a raised eyebrow.

“Ah. I’m guessing she hates me?”

“A bit.”

“Good. Good. So I’ve been racking my brain for good date spots in Hawkins and there isn’t—“

“Where did you take Vanessa?” Steve says, hopes to play it like he’s teasing, then realizes he actually doesn’t want to know.

Billy blinks. “The motel.”

“You didn’t even take her out first?”

“Nope.”

“So… you were fucking her the whole time you were here,” Steve says, feeling his face go red hot. They hung out like three or four times. “No, that’s great. Good. Fuck you, Billy.” Steve shoulders him hard when he walks by and leaves him standing in the kitchen.

Steve’s starting it. He knows he is. He can see the look in Billy’s eyes, notices the way he goes taciturn when Steve brings it up. Steve oscillates between wanting to punish him and wanting to just forget it. How ironic that Steve criticizes Dustin’s abysmal moral complexity, because suddenly Steve’s unable to see right from wrong nor accept the middle ground. He sits in the cold, tiled corner of his parent’s bathroom with the door locked.

Billy’s knocking sooner or later, which is more of a relief than anything. 

“Steve,” he says softly, tapping the door. When Steve opens it, he’s making this guilty, sweet face like a dog that just pissed on the carpet.

“I hooked up with a guy while you were away,” Steve says.

Billy’s face goes sort of sour, his brooding coming over his brow. “Who?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yeah, Steve. It does.”

“Guy who was hanging around at my job.”

“Are you still?”

“No.”

Billy looks like he’s going to hit something. Steve’s being an asshole. It’s a simple equation, and Steve kind of hopes he’ll catch on.

Instead, Billy just says, “Get dressed. I have to stop at Susan’s,” And stomps down the hall. 

At this rate, they won’t even make it out the door before Steve has successfully ruined all chances of communicating with him ever again, but his body finds it’s way to his closet and picks out an outfit anyway.

He goes with something good, but it feels weird and too tight. He hasn’t worn these kinds of things in a long, long time. It’s a jacket that Billy said he liked once (which is a little desperate, but Steve isn’t taking chances), a pair of jeans that fit him well, and his only pair of sneakers that haven’t turned into beaters. He gives a little extra care to his hair in the mirror. He stopped giving a shit after high school, but the Scoops Ahoy uniform really wore all remaining sense into the ground. 

Billy plucks the cigarette out of his mouth and whistles at the sight of Steve, which makes Steve a little shaky. He has to suppress a grin. They get in the bimmer, and Steve drives. The leaves have started to turn, all shades of green, yellow, red. They rain off the trees in front of the car.

Steve has been to Max’s place plenty of times, but he’s never gone in, especially when Neil still lived there. Billy invites him in, so with shaky hands, Steve clicks his seatbelt.

Susan greets them both from the kitchen. She reminds Steve of Mrs. Wheeler with her sweet face and apron. Billy goes straight for the shower. Susan makes the kind of small talk that Steve loathes, and Max must notice because she drags Steve into Billy’s room.

“Did you guys talk?” Max whispers, leaned up against Billy’s door. 

Steve plops down on the bed. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Did he apologize?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Are you guys dating?”

“I— don’t… We’re not talking about this.”

“Steve,” Max says, squints her eyes.

“I’m not talking to you about this. It’s so weird. Is Robin, like, paying you? Jesus.”

“No, we all just think you guys are stupid and—“

“Who is ’we all’? Can _you all _stop worrying about it?”__

__“Ugh, you are so much like him.”_ _

__“Who?”_ _

__“Billy, you idiot,” Max laughs before slamming the door, leaving Steve on Billy’s bed._ _

__Steve quite literally twiddles his thumbs and tries not to be nosy. He adjusts his position on the bed several times, thinking about how he’ll look when Billy walks in. He lays down, but that seems to forward. He sits against the headboard, but he feels geriatric and stiff. So he just sits on the foot of the bed, puts his feet on the floor, and tries hard not to look around._ _

__He’s about to escape to the living room when Billy comes in, humming something, hair wet and stuck to his forehead. He’s got a towel low on his waist. Steve clears his throat and glances away._ _

__Billy is smiling with his teeth. ”Almost forgot how good you look,” he says._ _

__“How could you?”_ _

__“I’d sooner die,” Billy says, shoving around in his drawers and throwing clothes onto the bed. He walks over to Steve then and steps himself between Steve’s knees, his hands on the fold of the towel. His eyelashes are still wet. He whispers, “Getting dressed. Want to stay or go?”_ _

__Steve swallows, eye level with Billy’s chest. He looks up at him and Billy says, “Don’t give me those eyes,” so Steve bats his lashes in the way he _knows_ is cute. There are water droplets all over Billy’s skin, and they wet Steve’s hands when he puts them on Billy’s legs. Billy drops the towel. It’s a bad idea._ _

__Steve runs his fingers along Billy’s side, where the gigantic, rippling scar is. It looks like the top half of a bite from a creature unnaturally big. The skin is mottled and stretched wrong around it, silvery-white against the tan of his skin. Somehow, it makes him more beautiful. Billy puts his hand through the hair on the back of Steve’s head. He’s half-hard. Steve’s cheeks are tingling, the skin on his arms prickling. They pull on each other, breathing loudly, Billy exhaling through his nostrils in a way that makes Steve melt. Billy leans over, wet strands of his hair touching Steve’s face and darkening the fabric of his jacket._ _

__“Can you wait, pretty boy?” he whispers, pulling Steve’s hands up his sides._ _

__Steve’s eyes roll back. He no longer speaks English, so._ _

__Billy slots their lips together, moving slower than molasses. It’s just something they do now, Steve supposes, they just kiss like this, and even better, they _know_ how to properly kiss each other. Steve’s body arches up to get more._ _

__The roles change, and quickly. Steve whispers, “Can _you_ wait?” and Billy whines in response. He retaliates by getting dressed. Steve has to look away, has to stand and shuffle around the boner he’s nursing in his jeans before they leave the room._ _

__Billy fixes an earring in and fusses with his hair in the mirror. He just towel dries it and it looks that way, which is unfair. He puts on some cologne. Steve is transfixed with Billy… he’s unnatural. He leaves the top three buttons of his shirt open, and his necklaces swing in the open space._ _

__The peculiar part is that he takes Steve’s hand and holds it, just lightly, leading him all the way out of the house. Even as he’s waving to Max and Susan. All Steve can muster is a stupid, “Bye.”_ _

__“You can’t do that in front of the wrong people,” Steve says._ _

__Billy takes the keys without asking and pops into the driver’s seat. “I wish Indiana wasn’t so podunk,” he puts his sunglasses on and checks them in the mirror, “I could kiss you in the right part of Los Angeles and no one would blink an eye.”_ _

__Steve has a hard time believing it. “You don’t care? If people know?”_ _

__Billy keeps one hand on the steering wheel, the other arm leaning towards Steve on the console. “Fuck ‘em,” he says._ _

__There’s a long pause, Billy driving still, though he does not specify the destination. Then he says, pondering, “Would you care if people knew?”_ _

__Steve has to think about it for a long time. If he could leave Hawkins, sure. But now he has the kids to look after, and Robin. And Robin is mostly out, but she’s a girl, and that’s different. There are kids getting called faggots and stuffed into lockers by the same kids who dare girls to kiss each other during spin-the-bottle. It’s not much better, but still, it’s different. _Steve_ is fine with it, but it’s other people he’s worried about. It’s other people telling his father. “I think so,” Steve says finally. It’s code for _yes, I’m terrified_._ _

__They’re in the parking lot of a local gas station where the coffee is dirt water, but Billy says he really needs some anyway, and leaves Steve in the front seat._ _

__When he gets back, he’s checking his watch, looking agitated, as if they’re late for something. He drives down some backwoods road that Steve isn’t familiar with, comparing directions with a torn piece of newspaper. Then, they’re going down someones driveway, where there are at least ten other cars parked along the lawn. It’s a gigantic house, all souped up and colonial looking, a fountain in the front and decadent landscaping crawling the yard. There’s a for sale sign out front._ _

__“What are we doing?” Steve says._ _

__“Looking at an open house.”_ _

__“Oh, right. For you?”_ _

__“Something like that,” Billy says, probably winking under his sunglasses._ _

__Steve shuts the car door and trails behind Billy, who’s walking like this is somewhere they belong. “I didn’t know houses like this existed in Indiana,” Steve says, which is in part a lie. They are the first commodified woodland area outside of Indianapolis, so the politicians vacation here, and people like Steve’s dad cozy up._ _

__“Shut up, Harrington. You live in one.”_ _

__It’s not true, since Steve’s house is probably a couple hundred thousand cheaper at least, but he won’t argue because that would be tasteless._ _

__Billy props his sunglasses on his head and grins at the realtor, who tilts her hips and blushes while they shake hands. “I’m Steve,” Billy says, “And this is my… cousin, Billy.”_ _

__“Hi,” Steve says._ _

__“Eight bedrooms, three and half baths, state of the art at-home gym—“ Billy interrupts her, takes a flyer from her hand, and tells her he saw the ad, but manages to sound sweet while doing so, “Would you like me to show you around?” The realtor asks, her business cards tucked in the pocket of her teal coat._ _

__“No, no, don’t worry about us, we’ll find our way around,” Billy butters her up before he steps away, pulling Steve by the arm of his jacket._ _

__He leads him up the stairs, the walls covered in Chinoiserie rip-off and tacky pale pink. It looks eerily like a dentist office decorator was let loose and wrought havoc._ _

__“This will be Willy’s room,” Billy says, poking his head into a little girl’s bedroom. “All the other one’s are mine. You can have the gym.”_ _

__“Wow, thanks. Appreciate that.” Steve is smiling, has been for a while. His cheeks are a little sore now. “Holy shit,” Steve says, garnering a disgusted look from a wealthy looking woman down the hall. There’s a bathroom the size of Steve’s own bedroom, and a hot-tub sized jacuzzi with royal blue mosaic like something straight out of Greece. “I can get down with that. Can I have that bathroom?”_ _

__“We’ll talk about it,” Billy says. “Come on.”_ _

__All the way down the hall seems to be the main event, where the majority of interested parties are crowding. Billy pushes gently past people dressed far more formal than them, Steve in tow._ _

__“Holy shit,” Steve whispers again._ _

__“I’ll share,” Billy says._ _

__It must be the master bedroom, because it’s the size of a small house, fit with authentic antiques and windows on all sides. It’s way more elegant and lavish than Steve can imagine having. It’s strange that people live this way. The entire house is eclectic and bizarre and very old money in a way that the Harrington’s don’t touch. Buyers funnel in and out around them, but Billy is waxing on about how they’ll live in this house._ _

__“I’ll have to learn how to garden,” Billy says, ”But right now I couldn’t keep a fuckin’ cactus alive. Seriously, there was one next to my stoop, and it died. I wanna look at the kitchen too. This furniture is ugly. There’s like a hundred acres of woods. My Aunt can live in the _in law apartments_ — there’s a fucking apartment off the house, seriously— because she wouldn’t let me just have Willy, but like, I can’t live without him any more. Kids are allowed to visit three days out of the week tops and they can’t touch anything.”_ _

__“Billy,” Steve says._ _

__“I’m Steve, remember?”_ _

__“Billy,” Steve says quieter._ _

__Billy is taken by that, and his posture changes. “What?”_ _

__Steve was going to say something else, but instead he says, “Four days a week. Kids can visit four days a week.”_ _

__Billy blinks and looks at Steve’s mouth like he knows it wasn’t the thing that meant to come out. Then he returns to form, “Hard bargain. Four days a week is fine, I guess. But only if I can get another dog.”_ _

__“Seriously? Like that’s a downside for me? Get fifty dogs.”_ _

__“We’re naming all of them Willy, so they all come running at the same time.”_ _

__Steve has to hold his breath to keep from giggling. Behind, hidden by the angle and the wall behind them, Billy is idly rubbing Steve’s wrist. Steve is starved for it. It’s better than sitting in the movies and trying not to touch the gum under the armrests. It’s better than getting tepid food at the diner. It’s even less believable than the strange things that happened here last year, but Steve’s attached to the fantasy of living in a gaudy politician’s estate with Billy, who gardens, and fifty-one dogs named Willy._ _


	19. fidget

They make out in the walk-in wine refrigerator and Billy says a single tile on the kitchen floor is probably worth more than everything he owns. He doesn’t give up the fantasy though, and Steve’s got a smile plastered to his face long after they are already in the car, Billy holding Steve’s hand, the other on the steering wheel. There are callouses along Billy’s fingertips and his fingernails are bitten to the bed.

Steve’s dodging pitfalls. He will recognize it as soon as Billy is pulling away, he tells himself. Why deprive himself now, though? How could he, when Billy looks like _that_ , when he’s being this way.

“I asked if you wanted people to know because,” Billy says, then breaks it with a short laugh, “I was gonna bring you up to the grill off Main. She works there. I was gonna introduce you as my boyfriend.”

“I’m not your boyfriend,” Steve says pointedly, chosen among like three thousand other things he wants to say to that.

“Well, not yet,” Billy smirks. 

It’s all that they say about it. 

Robin is a doorway to queer culture, with her books and movies and stories. Steve peeks in that door every now and then, but can’t stay long, because there is a crushing weight. He just assumes that after Billy, he’ll marry a woman and have a couple kids and that will be it. Vanessa would tell people about them, even if she took it as a joke. People would say things. His dad will probably tell him he’s shitting on the family name. They’re in Hawkins, Indiana, not West Hollywood.

“I was thinking we can go to Indy overnight, I’m not pressed for cash,” Billy says, “Been there a few times, while back. It’s fun.”

Steve has been to Indianapolis plenty; day trips where he was dropped off at museums alone so his dad could go to conferences. Sometimes his mother would come, but more often she would go shopping on the strip downtown. It’s kind of miraculous Steve didn’t get kidnapped, in retrospect. Steve squeezes Billy’s hand, and Billy squeezes back.

“Can we raincheck? I have the morning shift tomorrow.”

“Yeah, but only if you got another idea.”

“Being lazy on the couch.”

“Weren’t you the one giving me shit about taking you on a date?” Billy says, smiling.

“I leave the house like three times a week. I’m spent,” Steve says, but it’s an excuse to get home because Steve honestly can’t imagine a safer place around Hawkins to be. Suddenly, the idea of being seen together makes him a little twitchy. “And anyway, I’m already impressed with you. Like, seriously, better than I would’ve done.”

Billy perks up at that. “Can we at least do take-out?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Except when they’re driving by Family Video, Billy hangs a right the same time Steve spots Robin’s little car in the parking lot. “Be right back,” he says, leaving Steve with a wink, then sliding back in the car to kiss him on the cheek. It’s stupid, but Steve waits until Billy has shut the door and scopes out the parking lot, evaluating the possibility that anyone has seen them.

It’s a perfect fucking storm. Robin leans over the counter at him, and though Steve can’t see her face, she looks like she’s yelling at Billy. Billy is smiling, shifting around on his feet, batting his eyelashes at her. He gets up on the counter and they keep talking. The problem is, maybe-Jacob must’ve spotted the bimmer in the window, because he’s shuffling out of the grocery store and rushing into Family Video. It’s a usual thing; Steve has to deal with him every shift. Steve sinks deep into the passenger seat. He has a perfect view of the whole thing, and wishes sorely that he didn’t.

Billy doesn’t look concerned until maybe-Jacob is leaning towards Robin, asking her something. Robin shakes her head, then Billy hops down from the counter and gets real close to him and nods to the bimmer, and says something that makes maybe-Jacob look over. Robin has her hands on her waist, laughing, and maybe-Jacob storms out of the store, staring right through the window at Steve the whole time.

Steve shuts his eyes. It’s maybe five more minutes before Billy is opening the door and hopping back in the car.

“I met _Jake_ ,” Billy says, not sounding angry, which is a relief.

“Fantastic,” Steve mumbles.

“Robin said he’s always harassing her about your schedule. Creep. Don’t think he’ll do that anymore. And I think Robin and I are cool again,” Billy says, pleased with himself, his arm over the back of Steve’s seat so he can back up the car.

“What did you say to him?”

“I said you were with me and pointed to the car. He probably put two and two together.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, doesn’t really know how to feel about it.

“Are you mad?” Billy says, bit further down the road, fidgeting in his seat. He adjusts the mirror but it ends up in the same exact spot it was in before.

“No,” Steve says. His mouth is dry.

Billy laughs, mirthless. “Fuck, sorry. Shouldn’t have messed with your booty call.”

“It was one time,” Steve says.

Billy stiffens in the shoulders but doesn’t respond.

“I’m sorry. I’m— I’m fuckin’ scared shitless of people knowing. I’m not like you, I can’t not care.”

Billy shakes his head, cocks over to lean against the door, away from Steve. “I—“ he sighs, “It’s not— I care. If my dad ever found out, Jesus, he’d probably kill me. Like fucking for real.”

Shivers go down Steve’s arms, because Billy doesn’t sound the least bit like he’s exaggerating.

“It’s just because I don’t live here. Like, I would never be able to get laid again if people knew I was shacking up with a dude. I’m not fuckin’ stupid. I didn’t—“ Billy sighs heavily, like it physically ails him to talk. His knee starts bobbing around, hands jumping around on the steering wheel. “It’s just— you, Steve. I don’t know.”

Steve looks at his feet and the dirty carpet of the passenger’s side. He feels like an asshole, which is consuming the majority of his feelings to the point of being default. Billy exhales through his teeth. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Steve says, quietly, talking to the reflection of his own lap in the window.

“I don’t know, either,” Billy says. The agitation in his voice is gut wrenching. It’s not anger, it’s different from that. It’s much worse.

They roll up in Steve’s driveway, then Billy says, “Sorry, do you want me to go back to Susan’s?” his hand hovering on the key.

Steve shakes his head, and Billy takes the key out.

Billy sits on the couch picks at the skin around his fingernails, his brows furrowed down. Steve stares at himself in the mirror in the bathroom, wondering how he manages to utterly fuck every good thing to smithereens. And it’s only four o’clock in the afternoon, so Steve did even worse than he anticipated.

Steve steps back down the hallway, afraid to be too loud in his own house, and says, “I’m sorry.”

Billy says, “Me too.”

“What do you want for dinner?”

“Pizza.”

“There’s a couple flyers in the drawer next to the phone. I’m gonna get in the shower,” Steve says, even though he took one like six hours ago. It’s a coping mechanism, so.

Billy turns around and looks at Steve over the back of the couch.

“What?” Steve asks.

“Nothing,” Billy says, flipping back around and putting his feet up on the coffee table.

“Jesus, Billy, I’m like— I’m gonna die right here. This sucks. Can you not be mad?”

“I’m not mad,” Billy laughs, “Can _you_ not be mad?”

“I’m—“ Steve laughs back, “I’m not mad!”

“Fine!”

“Fine,” Steve says, giggling. 

“Steve,” Billy says.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” There’s a moment of silence, so Steve says, because it’s irking him, “Neil is really gone, you know. Max said he had some woman on the side, so he’s out there terrorizing someone else for good.” Steve pauses, watches Billy shift. “You can stay here, anyway.”

“You don’t know him. If he caught wind of it, like ever, I’d be dead. He always—“ Billy’s voice breaks. The tone is different when he says, “Forget it. I’m being fucking stupid.”

Steve feels a little impotent, especially because of the distance, so he rounds the couch and sits next to him, puts his hand on Billy’s knee. “I’d kill him.” Steve says, surprises himself.

Billy looks over, his eyes glossy and brimming at the waterline. Steve’s belly turns over. He thinks of Eleven reaching into Billy’s head and pulling him out; how the thing that brought him back to himself was the thought of his mother. How he sacrificed himself, and how Steve had to cover his face with his arms because the sight of Billy being torn apart was so horrific. Billy’s body dead on the stretcher. The way that Steve sunk down the wall and wept when he got the call that Billy was in a coma, but stabilizing. Steve prepared this whole speech for him which he recited and tweaked for months, had it memorized to the punctuation, because he assumed he would see him again. Until he heard that Billy walked out of the hospital and skipped town.

Steve’s heart used to beat out of his chest when he would write those letters. It’s stupid, but Steve wonders if he could do something so heroic. Who looks death right in the fucking face and is still afraid of their shitty father?

Steve kisses him when he remembers that he has permission. Billy pulls Steve by the arm, tugs him over and over until he’s climbing onto Billy’s lap, and Billy is pushing his tongue into Steve’s mouth, breathing hard. And really, who gives a shit who knows? Billy saved the fucking world. Steve can’t be bothered.


	20. shampoo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: pure smut, baby!
> 
> also CW: as usual no beta reader, so see u in a few days when i re-read this and fix all the shit i missed

Sex with a girl is pretty straightforward. Steve has also jerked off to the thought Billy’s mouth, and how much more straightforward does it get?

Billy pulls on the button of Steve’s jeans, tugs the waist down while he kisses him, grabs the underside of his ass and squeezes. Billy flips him over and throws him down onto the couch. Steve’s a little high on the way it feels to be pushed around. 

“I like these jeans on you, Stevie,” Billy says, breathless, tugging them off of Steve’s ankles.

Steve can only laugh, bewildered and dizzy and wanting to pull Billy back down again, feel his weight covering him. “C’mere,” Steve whines. Billy throws his jeans to the floor and abides.

Billy’s smile is perfect and gleaming white and unfair. Steve can’t pull a good, satisfying breath, though he tries. Billy kisses him slow, taunting, pulls on his bottom lip then licks it, kisses the sides of his mouth. He’s ghosting his hand over Steve’s boxers, the other hand shoved under Steve’s neck, gripping. He licks Steve’s tongue, grabs him by the jaw and pushes his head to the side so he can bite Steve’s neck. It’ll surely leave a mark, and Steve wants to say _leave more_ , but he’s struggling to keep a train of thought long enough to act on it.

Billy’s gripping Steve through his boxers, pulling him through the cotton, lingering on the head. Steve moans. It’s not enough; suddenly, there isn’t enough contact. So he pulls the buttons undone on Billy’s shirt, not really caring if he rips them off, opening up the line of Billy’s stomach, all the muscle there that’s working while he grinds down on Steve’s thigh. It’s too much. Steve has to take a deep breath or he might pass out. He has to take from Billy, has to get more of his mouth, has to—

“Steve,” Billy moans. 

It almost sends him toppling over, but worse, it fixes him with a madness that makes him shove up onto his knees, to take Billy into his arms and pull his hair. Billy moans again, leans weight onto Steve, the warmth of his skin burning through Steve’s shirt. He tastes like mint and cigarettes, in that order.

“Upstairs,” Billy says, between kissing him. Steve has to rip away or they’ll never make it that far.

Steve nods, running his hands all over Billy’s chest, feeling the rippling skin on his right side, the way he burns like he’s got a fever and Steve’s just come in from the cold. Little goosebumps form all over his skin, and Steve laughs, winded, Billy’s forehead pressed to his. 

“ _Come on_ , Steve,” Billy says, and he is downright begging.

Steve leads Billy up the stairs by the hand, Billy’s eyes all hooded, dazed, hungry. Billy slams the door shut behind them and gets his fingers in Steve’s hair, walking him backwards on to the bed. Steve goes tumbling back, Billy climbing on top of him, shrugging his shirt off. He pushes Steve’s t-shirt up his stomach and presses down on the skin there, his eyes rolling back. “Fuck,” Billy says, “Fuck, you’re hot.”

Steve looks up at him, barely able to hold himself on his elbows, trembling in his arms. “You’re— you’re insane…” Steve takes a breath, “You’re so hot, Billy,” he says onto his lips. Billy’s kissing him again, and Steve’s running his hands along Billy’s arms, paying attention to the places where he is soft, where he is strong. 

Billy is pulling away then, sinking down off the bed between Steve’s legs, his fingers landing on the waistband of Steve’s boxers. 

His eyes… Billy’s eyes are hypnotic. Steve’s head is spinning. He’s so hard that he might combust.

“You’re big,” Billy says, his eyes landing on the bulge in Steve’s boxers. He pulls down the waistband, his mouth falling open when Steve’s dick jumps back and smacks his stomach.

Steve’s gotten blowjobs before. It’s never been like this. Billy’s tongue trails the underside and circles the head. He covers his teeth with his lips, the slick of his spit dripping all over. Steve wants to watch, but his shoulders keep sinking on him, his head keeps falling back. Billy bobs up and down like this is something he’s done before, gazing through his eyelashes at Steve with no shame, no nervousness to conceal, his fingers tickling the inside of Steve’s thighs. Steve’s moaning. Like, he’s really moaning, every breath, louder and louder. Billy pushes down, takes Steve down his throat until his nose is touching the skin around the base. 

Steve feels it coming on, but he goes tumbling over before he can brace himself. Billy knows, stays put, and takes all of it, every last drop. He pulls off with a pop, his lips covered in spit, swollen and pink. Steve wants to marry him. 

Billy stands, sways on his footing, and pulls on the fly of his jeans, bunching them down on his thighs so he can pull himself out. Steve’s hands are on him soon as he can muster the strength to sit up. Steve starts working him— he’s about the same length as Steve, maybe a bit shorter, but he’s thick, a handful— but then his mouth waters, a byproduct of Billy being so hot that it’s ungodly.

Billy’s chest is rising and falling, his eyes rolling around, and he’s dripping precum into Steve’s palm. It makes him nervous, stomach aflutter, but Steve puts his lips to the head, licks just to see Billy groan. Billy’s salty sweet, and Steve is surprised by how much he likes it.

“Fuck,” Billy breathes, eyebrows furrowing down, lips open.

Steve leans forward and returns the favor. It hurts his jaw a bit, but he puts Billy to the back of his throat and follows Billy’s example, bobs up and down, picks up a pace. Billy’s fingers curl into his hair and pull, guiding Steve up and down. Steve _really_ likes that, really wants Billy to fuck his face, gets off on it so much he’s hard again.

Billy notices. He says, “Come here,” and pulls Steve up by the arms. He spits into his palm and squares their hips, takes both of them into his hand and coats them with it. Then he puts Steve’s hand in place of his own and says, voice wrecked, “I love your hands.”

Steve fumbles a bit, both of them slipping around, his ears ringing, legs threatening to give out, but finds his pace despite himself. It’s not long before Billy’s panting into Steve’s mouth, blushing furious along his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. Billy comes hard, and Steve isn’t long behind, and they make a mess on Steve’s t-shirt. Billy laughs into Steve’s neck.

Steve takes his shirt off and cleans them both up.

“Shower,” Billy says, voice surprisingly soft and ragged. 

Steve feels a kind of bliss that spells itself out quietly, the form of a fixed smile. Apparently, Billy does too, because he’s blushing like a school girl, his fingers ghosting on Steve’s skin, eyes following his lips and his hands.

Billy tails him into the bathroom and Steve puts the water up hot. He helps Billy undress, gets out of his own clothes, likes the way that Billy presses against him when they kiss.

Billy looks like a movie star in the shower, the way he runs his fingers through his hair and basks in the water. Steve’s heart jumps. This is different than anything else Steve’s felt, and he is genuinely wondering about his sanity (and equally not caring). Billy wipes shampoo off Steve’s forehead before it can get into his eye. Billy kisses him. He kisses him like he fuckin’ means it.


End file.
